Task 2 – Sophie Dubé

I read the two articles entitled “Negative effects of technology: What to know” and “9 subtle ways technology is making humanity worse.” These articles were more list orientated, focused on listing some simple ways that technology negatively affects people in their everyday lives. The articles had some overlapping points including technology causing bad posture, issues sleeping, eyestrain, mental health problems, and lowering general physical activity. The first article also mentioned how technology can cause isolation. Similarly to the first article, the second article mentioned additional issues technology can cause including lessening the ability to be able to socially interact in person.

One of the issues that stood out to me when reading both of these articles was the problems that technology can cause with our eyes. Both articles state that extended technology use can cause eye strain. One article even cited research from Mayo Clinic saying, “People who look at screens two or more hours in a row every day have the greatest risk of this condition.” The condition, of course, being digital eye strain. This issue stood out to me the most because I have experienced digital eye strain firsthand. Over this past summer, I worked 9-5 a few days a week. Most of those days I was sitting in front of my computer all day long. At the end of the day, I found that I would have a terrible headache and my eyes would be dry. Both of these symptoms can be attributed to eye strain. 

One of the solutions that the article “Negative effects of technology: What to know,” mentioned to help mitigate the problem of eye strain is the 20-20-20 rule. The 20-20-20 rule basically explains that to help lessen the effects of digital eye strain, every 20 minutes that you’re on your phone or laptop you should take a break from looking at your screen for at least 20 seconds and try to focus on something that is 20 feet away. Thinking about this 20-20-20 rule, I thought an interesting way to develop this rule into a more useful tool could be to design an app that notifies you every 20 minutes to do the 20-20-20 rule. The app would run in the background while users were on their devices and every 20 minutes it would send a notification, or maybe even pause your screen for 20 seconds, as well as prompt you to take your break and look at something that is 20 feet away. It’s easy to lose track of time when we’re plugged into our devices, so this app would be helpful in reminding us to take those breaks every once in a while.