Kristi Pedak - Who is Homo Computerus?
More than two billion people use smart devices daily, and hence suffer from an illness that did not exist two decades ago. Kristi Pedak, a lecturer of special physical education at Tallinn University gives advice on how to alleviate the symptoms of the Homo Computerus Syndrome.
More than two billion people use smart devices daily, and hence suffer from an illness that did not exist two decades ago. Kristi Pedak, a lecturer of special physical education at Tallinn University gives advice on how to alleviate the symptoms of the Homo Computerus Syndrome.
On average, we use smart devices for work and leisure up to eight hours a day – most of the time we are awake – and seven days a week. Research shows that cumulatively, we strain our backs this way for 700-1400 hours a year. Even more, when we look at youths and pupils separately – the average is 5000 hours a year.
This has a clear affect on our health. Almost 60 per cent of office workers suffer from headaches, tensions in the neck and shoulders, sleep disorder, fatigue and stress.
The average human head weighs 4-6 kilograms, which means we balance a bowling ball on the top of our body each day. What happens to the body if we tilt our heads forward to glance at our smart phones? The position of our heads determines the position of our bodies. If the head is ahead of our shoulders, the muscles in the neck and upper back have to work more to keep the head up.
For example, tilting our head forward by 15 degrees increases the load on our vertebral column by 13.5 kilograms. This increases to 25 kilos if we tilt our heads by 45 degrees. Thus, we could say we carry an eight-year-old on our shoulders for hours every day.
Bad posture is one of the main causes of upper back and neck aches. If we tilt the head forward, the body automatically compensates by raising our shoulders and bringing them forward, increasing the concavity of the neck line and the curve in our upper back.
If we maintain bad posture for very long, the body gets used to the wrong signals and such a posture seems normal to it. After that, regaining normal posture is increasingly difficult, as such a position is deleted from our muscle memory, and replaced with the new one. This increases the tensions in our neck, back and shoulder muscles and bones, which in turn brings about irreversible changes in our skeletal structure.
In addition, having bad posture decreases our lung capacity roughly by 30%. This decreases the circulation of blood in our tissues and diminishes our metabolism.
How to avoid the Homo Computerus Syndrome?
- Raise your eyes. Changing where we look changes the position of our heads and thus that of our bodies – correct the position of your monitor, and your position behind the desk. When using smart devices, raise them to your eye line.
- Pause for at least 90 seconds every 30 minutes – there are apps to remind you to move about every now and then.
- Find the time to exercise twice a day:
1) Sit up or stand straight and try to touch your shoulder with your ear by tilting your ear.
2) Turn your head right and left.
3) To exercise your neck muscles, push on your forehead with the palm of your hand and use your neck to resist the tension. Hold this position for six seconds.
4) Push on the back of your head with the palm of your hand and use your neck to resist the tension. Hold this position for six seconds.
5) Put your hands behind your head and stretch, or keep your hands on your sides and shake them backwards.