How we interact with technology can have a significant impact on how we view ourselves. The effects of technology on our brains and bodies frequently go unnoticed by us, even though occasionally we may notice this when our necks start to hurt from hunching over a gadget or when we feel inadequate after viewing a friend's Instagram story.

Realizing that our minds are malleable is the key to figuring out how to use technology in a healthy way. We can utilize technology in ways that are both harmful and beneficial to us. The following list of five bodily effects of technology use includes suggestions for future management.

Technology Use May Change the Brain's Structure

Pings, alarms, chimes, and notifications can cause our attention to be diverted in a way that can result in persistent problems with paying attention. Poor performance on activities for school, the individual, and the workplace may result from attention problems. In fact, French and British studies discovered that media multitasking may contribute to a loss of gray matter in the anterior cingulate cortex, a region of the brain where attentional regulation is located.

Technology Use Can Damage Your Brain's Pleasure Center

When something makes us happy or excited, dopamine is the neurotransmitter that is released. Our brain's pleasure centers (ventral tegmental region, nucleus accumbens, and basal ganglia) can become overstimulated by dopamine when we receive nearly continual electronic stimuli like text messages, YouTube videos, photographs, or video games. In response to other pleasurable activities like eating, reading, talking to someone, or holding hands, our brain's pleasure regions may become less receptive as a result of this overstimulation.

Use of Technology Can Damage Our Memories

According to research, we are forgetting information since we are aware that we can look it up on Google or other digital platforms. The participants were divided into two groups: those who were told the computer would save their work and those who were told it would delete it. All participants were then instructed to jot down as many of the 40 trivia facts they could remember. In comparison to the group who were told the computer would save what they had typed, the group who were informed the computer would wipe their document performed significantly better on the job.

Utilizing Technology Can Reduce Sleep

Technology use can cause you to sleep less in a number of different ways. Many individuals have their phones by their beds at night, intending to check their emails or social media feeds one last time. But it's all too simple to just keep clicking, and before you know it, you've lost a few hours of sleep and gone down a number of rabbit holes. 

Even when you put your phone down, the blue light your eyes absorbed from the screen may still interfere with your normal sleep cycle, robbing you of even more sleep. Or perhaps your ability to sleep is being hampered by thoughts about your friend's depressing social media post or the troubling national news.