By Doctor Cristina Terrado MD
Our wonderful hand-held gadgets entertain, inform, and allow us to communicate. But more and more our lives are increasingly ruled by these gadgets. And it should be the other way around.
Humanity is becoming mentally and physically handicapped as a result. The most obvious is the near physical loss of the use of one hand. And socially, many lose important human interaction due to their obsession with the gadget.
Dining out on a recent night out with my friends, a couple nearby obviously on a date were both so busy with their gadgets that I joked to my friend - they must be texting each other, or worse - texting another boyfriend or girlfriend.
Out of fear for my life, I had to get off a bus because the driver refused to stop texting. I was exasperated when he tried to reason out that it was important despite the fact that he couldn’t stop texting for several miles. I hope he had lots of liability insurance. Unfortunately, we all know people who text and answer their cell phone while behind the steering wheel.
Recent studies have shown the majority of road accidents in the Philippines are now due to texting while driving. American Insurance industry stats show that for the first time accidents caused by texting drivers exceeds that of drunk drivers in the US. I suppose it’s now the case everywhere on this gadget covered planet. A planet we now share with millions of gadgets, robots and drones.
Every day one reads of people falling off cliffs while taking selfies and stepping in front of cars, trucks and even trains while gadgeting. Worse - truck drivers, train engineers and pilots have been observed gadgeting when on the job. In the “sure sign from heaven" department there was the young woman in San Diego California who stepped into a hole full of snakes while gadgeting.
Gadgets do overheat, batteries explode, bedrooms and houses burn down, people get serious burns and scientists suspect the potential of brain damage caused by the holding of cel phones next to our heads over the long term.
The only damage caused by the old rotary dial phones I grew up with was to our heads if someone was mad enough to clonk you with one. Those phones were virtually indestructible and were built to last a lifetime.
The G-virus has hit the home front too. Teens and adults now do housework with one hand while the other hand holds a gadget. If Darwin was right - in a million years humanity will have one arm longer than the other and one hand will be quite different from the other. Perhaps as different as a tentacle and a claw.