Everywhere you look today and in nearly every facet of your life now the use of technology has become quite prevalent and necessary. From the time you wake up in the morning to the time you go to bed at night and nearly every hour in between there is some form of technology that needs to be used in order to help you get through your day at home, work and even in your leisure time. While all of this available technology has certainly been a boon and works to make your life easier, recent studies have begun to wonder does technology increase the likelihood of you experiencing more anxiety in your daily life.
How Technology Can Make You Anxious
There are actually a few ways that technology can serve to make you feel much more anxiety than you have in the past. Because you have come to rely on the use of technology so much wither in your personal life, your work life or both, when access to the technology you have come to rely on so heavily is cut off or restricted for one reason or another you can find yourself in a situation where you feel very anxious. For example, if your computer is not working for some reason and you are unable to check your email or get on social media, you may feel a high level of anxiety because you have grown so accustomed to using technology to do these for you that you feel lost without it, contributing to anxious feelings you have. The same can happen to you when you cannot use your smartphone, tablet, e-reader or even your television.
A Particular Problem Among the Youth Today
Studies have indicated that while many adults will experience anxiety because of technology use, they experience it often for different reasons and in much fewer numbers than the youth of today. Youths that have grown up with the expectation of being able to always use some form of technology can have a much more difficult time adapting to situations where they may not have access to their technological devices, causing a higher rate of anxiety and depression than that of adults. The reasoning seems to be that older people are more accustomed to using technology for more restrictive times and have lived through times where certain technology may have been limited or even non-existent, while many youths see it as their only source of information and entertainment.
Because the use of technology continues to grow in every way and seems to be infiltrating your life more and more all of the time, it seems likely that more anxiety will be caused by technology to larger groups of people as time goes on. The only way to avoid this problem is to learn to limit the use of technology so that it does not become the dominating factor in your life so that you are able to experience times without it with ease.