The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
When you are under the age of 20, you pretty much assume you are immortal. You drive fast, don't wear your seatbelt, and never worry about where that last drink came from. After the age of about 30, you start to get "danger creep." This is the period of your life when you begin worrying about the actual consequences of your actions and of the tools that you use. Danger creep also leads us to begin thinking about things that we never considered before; like the danger of using your printer. I'm completely serious. A new study, released just last week, has shown that in offices where laser printers are used, over the course of an eight-hour work day, the amount of small toner particles floating around in the air increase over six fold. These tiny bits of toner are small enough to get into your lungs and can lead to the same symptoms as allergy sufferers get from pollen. As a matter fact, when these facts were released, immediate calls for further study were called for by the governments of England and Australia, possibly leading to new air regulations or for printers to be isolated from people if possible. The dangers of technology have been around since people began spending too much time in front of their computers. We had calls for exercises that people could do sitting in front of their screens to relieve the stress on their legs. We had other exercises to relieve the strain on our backs and we also worried about the possible eye problems that would occur from too much screen time. Another technology danger was the urban myth a few years ago about cell phones causing brain cancer. All electronic devices emit some form of radiation. The electromagnetic waves that carry the signals have to be strong enough to pass right through bodies and other structures or else they would not be much use. This led people to worry about the strength of these waves and their effect on us. It turns out the actual research on this subject that was conducted around the year 2000 found a solid link between phones and cancer. Newer research on newer phones, done with more precise equipment, has turned up the opposite result, finding no link at all between electronic devices and cancer. The most pervasive problems that we are hearing about from technology involve our poor health from simply leading a sedentary lifestyle. Consistent, solid, recent research has shown that we spend far too much time in front of computer and TV screens, leading us to become heavier and much more prone to diseases like diabetes. Even more problematic are the studies that have been performed using kids as subjects. Many children are overweight and the link between poor diet and too much time playing video games and watching TV is clear. But even this is changing. Many fitness gyms are beginning to hook fitness bikes up to video games, encouraging kids to ride in order to play. As well, the Nintendo Wii, the console that was released almost a year ago, has found legions of fans who are using the innovative device to exercise, and there are several weblogs online where people are documenting the amount of time they are spending using the console, the number of calories they are burning, and the amount of weight they are losing. So technology is a great thing that has changed our lives. But as with all things, we need to be careful about what we use it for and pay attention to its affects on our lives and our health. ([email protected])
