Is being on your phone or computer too much bad for your health? I am starting to think it is. We often hear about the blue light screens being bad for people’s eyes, and I can attest, that is definitely true. We all know that feeling of staring at a screen for hours at night, whether it is from cramming the last few pages of an essay before 12, or mindlessly scrolling through Instagram until 3. When we put the device down and look at something other than the screen, our eyes and mind feel drained. I always feel like my eyes are extremely dry, and I have trouble focusing on things I look at. Often, when I close my eyes and try to sleep after being on my phone at night, I feel my eyes burn from finally getting a blink in after 10 minutes.

Now I know, just from experiencing it myself, that it cannot be healthy to be on your phone long enough for your eyes to burn. But I think there are also issues with being on your device too much other than just the light. Things like social media and advertisements on the devices are meant to be addicting and draw you in for hours. Think of Tik Tok, they have algorithms written to be extremely addictive, and this addiction can be like any other form of addiction. If you find yourself thinking that you will go on an app for only a few minutes, and then find an hour of your day has suddenly vanished, you might be in the midst of an addiction.

From my experience, I can attest that many people are addicted without knowing. My roommate, for example, would spend hours a day last semester on his phone, just scrolling Tik Tok. Finally, he noticed the issue and noticed the pointless time-suck, and has begun limiting his phone time. And this is a really helpful thing included on my phones. There are timers you can set to limit how long you are on your phone.

So my advice would be to use these timers. Do not let yourself be sucked into wasting valuable time from your day and life into something as monotonous and boring as your device. And of course, there is no issue with being on your phone, but be cognizant of when it becomes excessive because at that point it becomes a nuisance and in my opinion, hurts your health.