In need of a digital detox?

How early did you check your phone this morning? If the answer was first thing – read on…

If you’ve occasionally bumped into people on the street, or are often clueless about what’s going on around you, chances are you love your smartphone, so much so that scientists have given this obsession a name. 

It has been identified as ‘cybersickness’.

While double tapping Instagram brings you a certain addictive joy, the symptoms that come with it are unpleasant, with feelings of nausea, headaches and dizziness. It all comes down to an imbalance between our sensory inputs.

Studies show that women are more susceptible than men. Often symptoms are subtle. As a result, many people who are experiencing digital motion sickness do not quite know what is causing their discomfort, typically chalking it up to stress, stomach upset, eyestrain or vertigo.

It’s caused by seeing a fast motion on screen, from a video to mindlessly scrolling through web pages.

Cybersickness affects up to a whopping 80% of the population who own smartphones and tablets.

A recent study done at Leicester’s De Montfort University has worked out just how bad having a mobile addiction is.

The researchers found that the more often you check your phone or the Internet, the more likely you are to have ‘cognitive failures’.

So the next time you moan about feeling sick, unwell or stressed, or just have a general lack of awareness of your surroundings, it might be time to put the phone down.

Read the full article here: http://bit.ly/1Yw6DYa