The Development of New Technologies Makes People Become Dependent on them

Phones such as the iPhone and Samsung make it conceivable to do almost anything that can be done on a computer in the palm of your hands. Things such as getting to an email, surfing the web, and even using social media have become the standard on mobile phones. Messaging has even supplanted discussions between people. In spite of the fact that the innovation of it is utilized and thought of as comfort and extravagance, once in a while innovation can be an impediment.

The broadening of technology has given humans the capacity and reason to be apathetic.

Taking out things like going outside to talk with individuals has become a relic of past times. Messing around with any type of games that aren’t on the TV is not the norm anymore. Additionally, we are passing our practices with technology down to our future generations. Technology use has skyrocketed over the past few decades, and what makes you think it will ever stop? If usage is controlled, would obesity rates decrease? Is technology really the one to blame for people not being in shape, or is it the person themselves? The health of millions is a big concern of health officials, and it is only getting worse.

Obesity is a stipulation where there is strange or unnecessary fat development in fat tissue that harms a person’s wellbeing. “Excessive neck flexion is widely believed to increase the risk of neck pain… is commonly observed during children’s use of mobile touch screens…”(Straker). Children who are allowed to use mobile devices for an extended period of time will increase their chances of pain in the future, and kids who use technology more than average have higher chances of becoming obese. They, however, need to run around and be active to burn all of their energy. As shown in the NBC article, “ Children have greater energy levels than well-trained adult endurance athletes, a recent study found. Young children not only have fatigue-resistant muscles, but they also recover faster from high-intensity exercise than both trained and untrained adults”(Salem).

Twenty-five percent of kids in the US are overweight, and a stunning eleven percent of them are obese (Dehghan, Akhtar-Danesh, and Merchant). Children’s weight is a harbinger to one of the United States most prominent general problems. The development of technology itself has majorly affected youth weight. Corpulence is an across-the-board scourge and is deteriorating as innovation increments. The utilization of innovation relates straightforwardly with youth corpulence since it has been demonstrated that innovation has made youngsters live increasingly inactive ways of life versus dynamic ways of life. Likewise, TV ads impact kids to build their admission just to promote nourishments incredibly high in sugar and fat. Obesity in youth is principally caused due to individual way of life decisions and ecological variables like where the kid lives (Dehghan, Akhtar-Danesh, and Merchant). Rural areas all around the world are surrounded by fast-food restaurants.

Some fast-food industries even have specific meals and commercials targeting younger audiences. Mcdonalds has the happy meal, Burger King has the Cheeseburger King Jr meal, and there are many more that could be named. All of these companies are located not only in places where they know they will make money but in places where it will be busy all the time. The ‘dollar menu’ is a section of the menu at McDonald’s where you can get a select few foods for only a dollar each. If food is listed for cheap and a family is tight on money, they are going to go for the dollar menu instead of their five dollar salad. Why would you pay five dollars for one salad when you could get five different items for the same price.

There are also deli’s or bodega’s, on every city street corner. The people who live on that block have easy access to drinks like Arizona Iced Tea or foods like Lays Potato Chips, which are high-calorie, low-benefit items which they sell for a dollar each. Mcdonalds sells 75 hamburgers per second and feeds 68 million people per day(Lubin). This means that McDonalds feeds about one percent of the earth’s population per day. Although this is disturbing, it is a study that truly shows how many people would rather eat food that is cheaper and that is made for them. Fast food industries have made people even more lazy by providing food for them, rather than having to get their own supply of ingredients and actually making the item. The worst part of all of this is that there are now applications like Uber Eats that deliver food, that normally won’t, to your front door. Consumers do not need to leave their houses to get food anymore. Technology has changed the way that everything used to be, and the only thing to do is to adapt.

The dependence on technology has been shown in multiple studies to be linked to increasing obesity rates. However, there are an immense amount of ways that this technology craze could be slowed down. People have become addicted to using their mobile devices, so addicted that it has become a major issue. Doctors in India, South Korea, China, Taiwan, and Singapore had such a substantial amount of concern about the amount of use of technology that they opened up technology-de-addiction clinics. “China itself has over 300 Internet addiction centers. In 2007, concern from China over a report stating that 13.7% of its youth (about 10 million teenagers) met the criteria for Internet addiction disorder led to the implementation of laws discouraging more than 3 hours of daily online gaming”(Mcnamee). An addiction is not something to ignore, that’s why these clinics were opened. These clinics are open to anyone, but mainly the people who are put into these are children. Parents who are concerned about the amount of time their sons or daughters spend on their technology now have an easier route to discipline it.

People spend a lot of time in front of a screen. In fact, “at least 64 percent of people now spend up to four hours daily of leisure time alone on a device”(5 Minute Health Boosters). Four hours a day on average. In four hours there are so many other things such that can be done as studying, working out, hanging out with friends, etc. The average person sleeps anywhere from seven to nine hours a night. These statistics have been steadily declining due to the increase in technology use. “Adults should aim for seven to nine hours of slumber a night. Get less than seven hours and you put yourself at risk for a whole host of health consequences that range from worrisome to lethal, including memory and heart problems, increased cancer and diabetes risk and earlier death” (HuffPost) The extra 30 minutes of sleep can really make a difference over time. As you can see, the study shows some serious health risks that drastically increase if you do not get enough sleep at night.

One way grown-ups do this is with wellness and calorie checking gadgets, similar to a Fitbit for instance. An ever-increasing number of youngsters are beginning to utilize these gadgets too. The essential objective of utilizing innovation like these gadgets is to assist youngsters with doing self-observing. It’s really a tricky method for changing their conduct. Children are normally focused, by letting them track their movement as a number of steps taken or time spent on a specific action. This urges them to continue onward and meet achievements. Children get quick criticism on how they’re doing, another viewpoint that children love about innovation, and discover how they are getting along at some random minute is enormous to kids. Some wellness trackers even make it progressively a good time for kids by giving them games or something to compete for. It gives them a visual reference that they can comprehend and help shape solid practices, and continue using this into the future.

There are some solutions that can reduce the obesity rates from increasing. One major solution is parents or guardians taking action. My parents to this day will still not allow me to sit in front of a screen all day. No matter what the weather, the time, or the day. They will not let me play video games for a long period of time. I am not even allowed to play during the school week if any of my averages drop below an 85. There are applications that make it relatively easy to limit one’s use. For example, on Apple products, there is a relatively new application called ‘Screen Time’. This application lets the parent or guardian sign into and controls what apps the phone owner can go onto as well as how long they are able to use it.

This app is definitely effective, I know because I have this too. My parents give me two hours on all social medias combined everyday, so I use my time wisely. If the government regulated what fast food industries could advertise, then fewer commercials would be showing all of the high-calorie low benefit intake foods. If Mcdonalds put the calories and ingredients that are in one burger onto the wrapper of it, people would be able to see what they are really eating. As stated by the Julie Downs, an associate research professor of social and decision sciences in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, ‘The general inability of calorie labeling to result in an overall reduction in the number of calories consumed has already been pretty widely shown”(Castillo). I’m not trying to say that labeling all foods will stop people from eating fatty, greasy foods. However, it might make people think more about how many calories they intake daily, and it could even prevent eating these foods more than once or twice a month. Limiting these foods could potentially decrease obesity rates significantly.

My family and I, however, have lately been falling into the trap of not cooking our own food, and giving into the fatty, greasy foods. I try and encourage my family to eat healthier and know what is in our foods as much as I can. The solution to technology causing obesity rates to increase could be solved by technology itself. First, there are many companies such as FitBit and Apple who have recently put out watches that can be used for telling time and tracking how active you are throughout the day. These watches are very useful, showing how many steps one takes, your heart rate, even how many flights of steps you walked up! It is crazy that all of this useful information can be easily tracked and monitored just by wearing a smartwatch. Going along with the watches, there are hundreds of applications that can track calorie intake. I, personally, use an app called “Samsung Health”. When you first download an application tracking calories, it usually will ask you what your goals are, like are you trying to lose or gain weight and in how long. Then, they’ll set you up with a target calorie intake that they recommend you stay close to to obtain your goal weight by your chosen set time. These apps are very useful because they show you how much the foods you are putting into your body are good or bad for you.

Most calorie tracker apps are free, but there are apps that you can become a member for a payment per month, and they give you even more access to things like suggested meals. Another application that there are hundreds of are workout apps. Once again I too myself have and use a workout application. These applications also have you put in your personal information like height and weight, and your goals in a certain time frame. I use the app “Workout:Gym Programs”, which has my whole week planned out with specific workouts to do. Now, I have the free version of the app, which is obviously like the calorie tracker, restricted to a certain point, but still very useful. If you subscribe to become a member of a workout program app, you will have unlimited access to specific workouts with video demonstrations, specific areas to workout for specific results, and some apps even give you a real personal trainer on the app that you could contact and ask any questions you have about anything. I most likely will be switching very soon so that I can make sure that I am doing everything correctly, and thoroughly. The constant support and motivation through these apps are what make the people who use them do what they do. Sure, the technology could be a big problem in relation to obesity rates, however there are multiple solutions that could bring the rise in obesity rates to an end.

Technology is giving significant increments in transfer speed each year. Data advances are giving emotional increments in registering power and the limit with regards to overall access to data by clients on either verified or unbound intranets. The mind-blowing sturdiness and speed of these advancements will give people unmatched power over merchandise, administrations, and exercises, everything except wiping out the obstructions of time and the distance. Humans that have become dependent on technology have both benefits and disadvantages to them. Technology is still expanding rapidly to this day, and the reliability is continuously growing. The use of technology could be restricted and monitored to keep obesity rates from increasing, but will it be is the question that needs an answer. 

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