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Full Version: Physical toll of smartphone addiction + Can brain abnormality explain psychopathy?
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The physical toll of your smartphone addiction
https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/...addiction/

EXCERPTS: According to the Pew Research Center, 85 percent of Americans have one, and nearly 50 percent admit they may be addicted. We’re tethered to our devices. They sit on our desks when we work; we use them when studying and attending lectures, while watching movies and sporting events; and we use them at mealtimes. They even rest on our nightstands, being the last thing we see when we sleep and the first we see when we wake. One-in-six cellphones contains traces of fecal matter, bacteria, and E. coli, because we use smartphones in the bathroom. When it comes to microbial infection, your smartphone is “The Trojan horse of transmission.”

[...] There are well-documented implications on mental health. Excessive smartphone use is consistently associated with depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, attention-deficit hyperactive disorder, loneliness, chronic stress, low self-esteem, and other negative emotions. Heavy use of social media, specifically, is also associated with poor mental health including increased risk of anxiety and depression.

[...] Notwithstanding the widespread effects of smartphone addiction on mental health, the literature suggests there may be a heavy toll on physical health, one that is often overlooked. ... Another analysis applied a hierarchical regression model and found that greater cellphone use was associated with lower cardiorespiratory fitness, measured, in this case, as peak oxygen uptake (V̇O2peak)...

[...] In many ways, the relationship between your smartphone and your health is a toxic one. But could it be reformed to facilitate better health outcomes? (MORE - missing details)


Can this brain abnormality explain why some people are psychopaths?
https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/scie...ychopaths/

EXCERPTS: . . By looking at the brain scans of the individuals who scored higher on the psychopathy test, the researchers noticed that an area of the forebrain, known as the striatum, was about 10% larger in psychopathic people compared to individuals with low or no psychopathic traits.

“Our study’s results help advance our knowledge about what underlies antisocial behavior such as psychopathy. We find that in addition to social environmental influences, it is important to consider that there can be differences in biology, in this case, the size of brain structures, between antisocial and non-antisocial individuals,” Assistant Professor Olivia Choy, a researcher at NTU’s School of Social Sciences and a neurocriminologist who co-authored the study, said in a statement.

[...] Rather than violence and aggression, the main defining feature of psychopathy is the lack of empathy, which can manifest itself in anti-social behavior since the individual lacks guilt, remorse, or what most people would call a conscience.

Psychopaths often are manipulative, charming, exploitative, and behave impulsively and in a risky manner to reap all sorts of rewards, including monetary gains, political power, or even sex.

The striatum is part of a larger subcortical region of the brain that, more broadly, coordinates various elements of cognition, including decision-making, motivation, reinforcement, and reward perception.

Previous studies have linked psychoactive traits with heightened activity in the striatum, which may increase the need for stimulation through thrill-seeking behavior, as well as lead to a higher likelihood of impulsive behavior.

The new study, which linked MRI scans and the results of screening for psychopathy, is the first to link having larger striatum to psychopathic traits. It’s also the first time that psychopathy was linked to enlarged striatum in both males and females... (MORE - missing details)
One sure effect of looking at a phone all day is the onset of near-sightedness in kids. I got near-sighted by drawing and reading alot when I was a kid. A small price to pay for an imaginatively rich childhood of escapist fantasies. Lasik corrected my vision later on in 1999. Had to drive to Canada to get it done for 1000 dollars per eye but well worth the trip and expense.
I don't spend much time at all looking at a phone, in fact the longest I've spent in months is about 30 minutes today looking for my phone.

(I don't use phones for a variety of reasons, however I ended up having to have one due to some sercurity issues where one was needed, so it only ever gets dusted off when it's needed for security. recently however it had fallen somewhere I didn't expect it to be, so it took a while to find it.)

Admittedly its kind of fun interacting with people that see you almost alien for not buying into maintream crapology, but to be honest the feelings mutually relative.
How mobile phones have changed our brains
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230...our-brains