59Digit | May 2014 | www.thinkdigit.com

Kartik Kulkarni is a bemused young man. Born in the ‘80s, he’s part of the generation that first-hand saw the explosion of digital technology

into our homes, here in India and around the world. As technology broke one formidable barrier after another – be it in the way Kartik communicated, seeked information, entertained him-self and got things done to live his life – he couldn’t help but notice that the world was coming together, becoming smaller and getting in his reach better than ever before. Kulkarni admits, with a wry smile, a reality that not only him but everyone faced while adjusting and adapting to life in the digital age. Health. Not just physical but mental health.

From getting his first computer in the mid ‘90s as a teenager, getting hooked on to reading technology magazines, slowly substituting the time spent outdoors playing real sports with video games on the television or his PC, and other such digital digressions. Slowly but surely, Kartik’s life was taking a major turn onto the digital highway. Consuming an over-whelming amount of digital content at an early age made Kartik innately different than his parents’ generation in more ways than one. Later in the new millen-nium, as smart devices started cropping up and the internet became accessible to one and all, Kartik Kulkarni, much like Alice (in Wonderland) fell even deeper

into the rabbit hole of the digital era, until he realized that there’s no escaping from it. He was mesmerized by technology at first, marvelling at its novelty and slowly getting enamoured by its ubiquity.

Kartik started suffering from the side-effects of adjusting to an overdependent tech lifestyle. Hours spent playing video games and working on his PC led to a rapid deterioration of his eyesight and

he attracted spectacles while still in his teens. An increasingly sedentary lifestyle became the dominating feature of Kartik’s existence, where he started putting on weight and growing sideways much more than was desirable – the lean and fit boy who conquered the district trophy by playing a crucial role in his school’s win-ning cricket team was lost in the shadows. Online friends became the dominating

Jayesh Shinde

Working those late nights and not grabbing enough sleep can impact you adversely

Our quest to realize our body and mind’s true health potential begins with keeping the harmful effects of our interaction with technology at bay

live lonG And prosper

Cover story

60 Digit | May 2014 | www.thinkdigit.com

comfortable existence on, are in fact con-tributing to our poor shape, deteriorating health and a myriad of physiological and psychological problems. Somewhere the lifestyle we’re leading doesn’t agree with our constitution. We need to bring about a radical change either in our life or the tech-nology we’re building to ensure mankind doesn’t fall off the wagon and devolve into something pitiful or a mass of blob.

Somehow, somewhere, not just Kartik Kulkarni, but all of us who’re glued to our smartphones, tablets, PCs, more than we should be, need a course correction. We need to learn to co-exist with the technology that we use without letting it adversely affect our mind and body. We need to reclaim lost ground, and there’s a lot of work to be done on that front. We need to put technology to work

in ways that we shall remain untouched by its harmful effects.

And the answer doesn’t involve unplugging yourself. Or throwing that smartphone or tablet away. Welcome to a new dawn in consumerized healthcare solutions that will help you reclaim your lost health back.

factor of Kartik’s life as real-life social gatherings, with friends, relatives, and even his own family started to reduce in frequency. Later when Kartik grew older and started working in the IT sector, he realized that he was getting sucked deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole. And any hopes of escaping it were fast evaporating. There was no end in sight from this cushy, comfortable existence.

technology works against your healthProbably not right down to the tee, but all of us born before the turn of the century can relate to Kartik’s story in some shape or form. It is probably the greatest irony of our times that in an age where tech-nology is breaking new ground in every possible way, trying to make our life easier and comfortable beyond belief, us humans are ill-equipped to enjoy the benefits of all this technological wonder to the fullest, probably getting paralyzed by an overbearing dependence on it. And it’s costing us our health.

Isolation, depression, stress, poor sleeping habits and obesity are just some

of the ill-effects of a lifestyle that hasn’t successfully adjusted to its overdepend-ence on technology and the digital age of the 21st century. Constant distraction, shortened attention spans, addiction and reduced eyesight and hearing are also some other companions of a life spent constantly plugged in.

There’s a growing sense of concern amongst our race that technology has made our existence cushier, way more

comfortable than how we’re supposed to exist and live in this world. There’s an overbearing sense of fatigue on all things digital, and a recognition of its harmful effects on human health (in the absence of precautions and a balanced lifestyle, of course). The technological marvels we all heralded in raptures, hinged our cosy

WE NEED To ANALyzE hoW TEchNoLoGy Is ImpAcTING us, rIGhT from ThE chAIr WE sIT oN WhILE AT our pc To hoW mANy hours WE’rE

sTArING AT DIGITAL scrEENs

Late last year, a University of Michigan

research and study concluded that using

Facebook can reduce young adults’ sense

of well-being and satisfaction with life,

according to a BBC report. The research

that tracked participants’ behaviour for two

weeks concluded that “checking Facebook

made people feel worse about both issues,

and the more they browsed, the worse they

felt.” While the largest social network does a

great job of connecting people, Facebook can

have negative psychological consequences

too. And their rate is increasing as more and

people are embracing it and spend more

time on it.

Web isn’t all goodOn the Web’s 25th anniversary, according

to a study by Pew Research Center, 15 per

cent of Internet users feel that the Web

has been bad for society and bad for them

personally as well. The research group

confirms noticing a trend of rising issues

over the years that tend to gnaw at people

about online life, according to Lee Rainie,

director of the center’s Internet and

American Life Project.

The Web is notorious for increasing the

digital divide between the “haves” and the

“have-nots”, increasing instances of online

bullying, encouraging to communicate only

with like-minded people, and more. Major

concerns abound regarding the Web’s ability

to spread misinformation, the loss of privacy,

and the loss of real human contact in favor

of virtual interactions, according to the

study. Read more here: http://dgit.in/1i7Ukcw

Raising digital nativesChildren of this generation are automatically

digital natives, born in a world of smart-

phones and the internet. Research suggests

what we label as “addiction” to technology

– with kids and infants – may actually be

normal. However, care should be taken that

kids interact with the physical environment

around them to live and learn, and not just

be stuck inside a house glued to a screen all

the time (and get obese). A word of caution

to parents raising kids in today’s age, is to

monitor kids’ exposure to technology to

prevent some of the obvious side-effects to

getting exposed to too much too soon.

A research (funded by the European

Commission’s Safe Internet Programme)

called ‘Net Children Go Mobile’ monitored

internet activity among 9-16 year olds

in Ireland, UK, Italy, Portugal, Denmark,

Romania and Belgium, and found that double

the amount of children surveyed said they

had encountered upsetting things online

than those surveyed two years previous.

This needs to change, obviously.

Facebook is bad For psyche

Cover story