How Does Technology Affect Mental Health? Essay Example

Did you know that there are over 3.36 Billion Active smartphones around the world!  Over the past few decades technology has evolved to be something so much greater than what we come to realize. We use technology every single day of our lives in some way or another whether it is to communicate, for work, school, or social media. Americans tend to believe that technology such as phones has bad effects on us; varying from mental and physical behaviors and mental. I agree with this statement. This leads us to beg the question of, do smartphones degrade our minds like we think they do? Research around the world says that they do, but some say it does not. Mental behaviors such as depression, anxiety, and loneliness are all factors of phones and with further aid, we will find out how and why this happens.

To begin, Technology is very useful to us humans and has become very important to our world; however, what it does to our brains is a different story, relating to the research question. In the article Impact of smartphone addiction on depression and self-esteem among nursing students written by Mahamed Sayeda, a researcher in mental health at Cairo University as well as others conducted explaining the effects of smartphones. According to Mohamed Sayeda, “Smartphone addicted people tend to feel depressed and isolated without their smartphones; besides, they can experience other symptoms of addiction such as preoccupation, tolerance, lack of control, withdrawal, mood modification, conflict, lies, excessive use, and loss of interest. Depression and low self-esteem are general reflections of psychological well-being”( Sayeda 1347). In other words, Mohamed believes that Smartphones cause Addiction which then leads to depression. Concurring with what Mohamed makes a connection to addiction and depression in smartphones is reasonable. When you are addicted to something and lose that thing you are addicted to you tend to get sad and then depressed. On the topic of depression, that’s pretty mind degrading if you ask me. 

Continuing, Smartphones have an instrumental effect on people of all ages. Especially college students. College students are more than likely to use their phones more than anybody, especially nowadays. People have become more reliant on phones than ever. Mohamed agrees in his study when he writes “In this study, there was a positive correlation between smartphone addiction and depression”( Sayeda 1351). Mohamed’s point is that phones can cause depression and will. The evidence listed backs the Research question. With depression being high among teens and college students in these recent years phones contribute to it. Nowadays because people are so attached to their phones Sayeda says “While the physical consequences of the overuse of smartphones can be easily diagnosed and managed, mental health issues are statistically significant concerns with smartphone overuse” (Sayeda 1347).  Sayeda brings up a  great point about how physical phones don’t harm us as much but mentally it’s a different story. Technology will continue to affect us until we limit our screen times and overall usage of it. Spending an abundance of time on smartphones and technology can also lead to other mental issues.

As a result of this, another way technology is affecting us is anxiety. Anxiety can come in many forms nevertheless it should never be looked over. Technology has its problems and anxiety is one of them. Nicholas Carr, a Pulitzer Prize winner who writes articles on technology, wrote the article How Smartphones Hijack Our Minds explaining how smartphones have taken over the human body in a bad way. Nicholas complicates the matter further when he writes “But while our phones offer convenience and diversion, they also breed anxiety. Their extraordinary usefulness gives them an unprecedented hold on our attention and vast influence over our thinking and behavior”(Carr 598). Carr is warning that because phones have taken over the world they have also overtaken our emotions. This directly affects our daily lives for the reason that phones are everywhere. A single buzz from your phone will get your heart rate racing and if you can't immediately look at the reason why it buzzed it makes the anxiety even worse. Carr relates by saying “even hearing one ring or vibrate, produces a welter of distractions that makes it harder to concentrate on a difficult problem or job”(598). Carr’s point specifically is that smartphone use every day brings an unprecedented amount of stress and anxiety and overall affects us daily. Having constant anxiety will regress your mind and lead to other issues such as loneliness.

Furthermore, Loneliness is a factor of technology as well. Being infatuated with a screen all day will affect your social life. It makes it easier to deny someone from hanging out and creating short condensed conversions with no meaning. As you can see technology really does hurt your mind. Carr advances on how technology hinders us by saying “Social skills and relationships seem to suffer as well. Because smartphones serve as constant reminders of all the friends we could be chatting with electronically, they pull at our minds when we’re talking with people in person, leaving our conversations shallower and less satisfying”(Carr 601).  Moore is establishing that because we are so involved with our phones and being faced down into the fabricated world we tend to be less empathetic and lacking in social life. I completely agree since this happens all the time. We see kids and adults nowadays becoming more and more antisocial and lonely due to the constant reliance on technology. This isn’t good in the long run for Humans. It will create less communication and will allow us to further distance ourselves from others. Humans are social creatures and need constant interaction. “lol” as well as “idk” don't count as interactions in my book. Despite all this, there are still people out there who will disagree with the idea that technology degrades our mental state. Carr Brings up an excellent point when he says “The evidence that our phones can get inside our heads so forcefully is unsettling. It suggests that our thoughts and feelings, far from being sequestered in our skulls, can be skewed by external forces we’re not even aware of”(Carr 601-602). Carr puts it perfectly by describing an underlying issue with phones and technology by saying that our phones hinder our ability to process information and we are not aware of it. This is crazy because this means that not only is it making our mental state weaker, it's making our way of processing information much worse.   

Moreover, People believe that there are merits and benefits to technology. Nicholas Brody a professor of communications at the University of Puget sound corresponds with this in his article It Turns Out Our Tech Gadgets Aren’t as Isolating as Experts Say. He presumes that this is true. Nicholas writes “The truth of the matter is that social media and smartphones never drove us away from one another. Rather, these tools highlight the most fundamental need of all to be connected”( Brody 594).  By focusing just on being connected Nicholas overlooks the fact that being connected isn't just the problem. Yes, you can be connected but it doesn't solve depression, anxiety. For example, someone posts on social media and it show them living a happy life and you see it and it makes you jealous and sad realizing that you are not like them. To sum up, it's not just being connected there is plenty of other factors. 

In addition to this, Near the end of Nicholas's article, he says “Expressing affection helps us better deal with stress”(Brody 594). I disagree with Nicholas’s view that affection reduces stress because studies have shown that expressing affection online does not parallel in-person affection. Therefore Nicholas’s claim is false.  

To conclude, You may be asking yourself, if technology is so bad then why has it helped the world so much? This is because you only see the good side of it. There are millions of people that are having problems related to technology. These include depression, anxiety, and loneliness. So going back to the research question of whether phones degrade our minds. I can strongly say yes. Technology affects us exponentially in bad ways. Are you gonna let this happen to your mind?