The cost of connections: ICT and mental health implications
New studies spell trouble for the ‘chronically online’ generation. Alyx examines current trends of rising technology dependency and weighs the psychological benefits and costs of digital connection.
Content warning: This article contains mentions of mental illness.
The era of information communication technology (ICT) rules the globe. Access to such developments were once protected and questioned, but these protections have increasingly dissolved with devastating impact on the mental health and wellbeing of both youths and adults.
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The ‘understimulated-overstimulated’ is a self-coined concept to describe the recent phenomena of a generation caught in the cycle of screen technology dependence. A dependence that, over prolonged periods, increases anxiety levels causing overstimulation of the sympathetic system. This havoc wreaked on the mind and body often leads back to a desire to escape into the false refuge of screen time. Ultimately, the effort to meet instant gratification and self-soothe means a continued cycle of unhealthy dependency and an increased socio-psychological burden.
The use of ICT have increased dramatically over the past few decades, raising technology dependency higher than ever across the United States and Canada, where critical milestones for child motor and sensory development are not being met and the incidence of childhood physical, psychological, and behavioural disorders is increasing. In a cross-sectional study, Rowan and colleagues collected data across 2006–2010 from 2,482 Canadian students in grades 7 to 12. The study used the Leisure-Time Sedentary Activities questionnaire to assess the daily number of hours spent using screens. After adjusting for age, sex, ethnicity, parental education, geographic area, physical activity, and BMI, the duration of screen time was directly associated with depression and anxiety severity in adolescents.
In much the same way that the United States’ Center of Disease Control prioritised the obesity and opioid epidemics, so too should it prioritise this technology dependency epidemic by working with schools, employers, and parents.
“This havoc wreaked on the mind and body often leads back to a desire to escape into the false refuge of screen time. Ultimately, the effort to meet instant gratification and self-soothe means a continued cycle of unhealthy dependency and an increased socio-psychological burden”
I reference these findings by no means as an attempt to demonise the positive implications of personal use of technology. Quite the contrary, I reference them to highlight the importance of balance. A 2021 cross sectional study examining the patterns of ICT use with friends and family outside of the home during the COVID-19 pandemic revealed that “voice calls were associated with less stress, loneliness, and relationship maintenance difficulties, while video chat was positively associated with all three”.
What's more, 2020 was the year I personally relied on connection through technology to cope with overwhelming disappointment and hopelessness that could only be felt and not explained. Connection with my peers in the Black Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) community to discuss, sit and cry together, accept, and heal led me to an important realisation about the lack of cultural connectedness during my youth. Growing up in a rural farming town that lacked diversity left me without a cultural space to seek refuge in the Black American shared experience, a space that I now know can be vital for thriving during difficult periods.
Long before the devastating social, economic, and health impacts of COVID-19, the United States was locked in a battle of wills against technology with the youth of the nation caught in-between as a byproduct of the drive for efficiency, profit, and productivity. Connection through technology has opened a whole new realm of existence. However, connections are not all made the same, and the long-term effects of excess technology use may come at a steep cost to the physical and mental wellbeing of many. We as a society must ask ourselves: what exactly is the cost of connection and are we willing to make generations to come pay the price?