After working in an office all summer and starting my internship at school it quickly became evident to me just how much time people spend looking at a screen per day. I would say on average I would spend roughly four hours out of the eight hour work day at my desk. After my tiresum work day I would often find myself sitting on my couch watching TV, thus spending more time sitting. On top of this, I also felt little to no motivation to work out or engage in physical activity if I began watching TV after work. Sitting and looking at technology all day felt draining for me and drastically decreased the chances of me engaging in physical activity.

While sitting for a long period of time may seem harmless, it is far from it. A few health issues from sitting all day include increased blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, and even heart attacks. With so many people sitting on electronics all day at work and at home it seems as if these health issues are only going to become more of a problem in the future. These health problems are not minor issues, most if not all of these issues could lead to a very unhealthy life or death.

With these health issues being so serious it is clear that changes need to be made in hopes to get people physically active while on technology. One solution that could be useful for streaming services would be to set a five minute lock out period after the viewer has watched for two hours with no breaks. The message that pops up could be something as simple as saying “Your program will resume in 5 minutes. Stand up and stretch!” With the time limit being so short the viewers likely won’t get annoyed and it will help them get active in the long run. During this five minute lockout time the viewer could get caught up in whatever else they are doing and end up not coming back to watch TV again and therefore being more active than they were before. Simply changing the message up to say something like “Go get some water!” or “Take a breath of fresh air!” would result in viewers having a new, healthy thing to do every time the lockout occurs. 

Something similar to this could happen at work, instead at work I feel as if it would be more useful to do it every hour. Having employees get a five minute break every hour may seem like it would drop overall productivity.However, I believe that if you give your employees a chance to clear their mind and move around for a few minutes, by the time they get back to their desk they will feel rejuvenated and more productive. On top of the increased productivity it would allow for a safer and healthier work environment.

The time spent sitting while using technology is clearly too long for the majority of people, including myself. With that being said a limit on the time spent without standing up or moving around needs to be implemented. With these limitations in place people will be forced to get up and be active and live a healthier lifestyle.