Health in the digital age I’ve spent the past few days writing and editing and working on a performance poetry piece which I am to perform at Spoken Word under the theme ‘Poetry in a Digital Age’, and the entire process has really got me thinking about the technologically advanced world that we live, and how it may affect our health. Due to the fact that our brains are bombarded with, and have to process, an endless stream of information, one can assume that this might influence our mental states. From my personal experience and the experience of others which I’ve witnessed and can assume, judging from the amount of times people log on to things like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat, people are fast becoming addicted to social media sites. The amount of ‘likes’, ‘shares’ and ‘retweets’ one gets serves as positive reinforcement to keep posting because of the perceived social status or popularity one might acquire online, which feeds the growing addiction. What I’ve also noted is that social media offers people a platform to hyperbolise their experiences and enhance the way that they look with filters and beauty apps. This creates an idealised version of reality where everything is made to appear more glamorous than it actually may be which might make people compare their lives to others and create feelings of incompetence, low self-esteem and worthlessness. Also because of the protection that social media provides users, people are more likely to engage in cyber bullying or what is known as trolling especially amongst adolescents. Negative comments left on the pictures that people post can have an adverse effect on how they feel about their image and could affect those suffering from depression, bipolar disorder or eating disorders adversely. I have taken to removing most of the social media applications I had installed on my phone and am slowly committing to only logging on from my laptop as well as reducing the amount of times I do post, and it feels good operating under these limitations because now I have more opportunities to live in actual reality as opposed to spending half my day in digital reality. Apart from all this I do recognise the beauty and importance of social media as it allows us to connect and stay in touch with our loved ones when traveling and to preserve relationships. Also, people who consider themselves as shy have an opportunity to connect with others whilst taking the advantage of hiding behind computer or cell phone screen whilst socializing. Social media has also served as a wonderful platform for the promotion of businesses and events and offers a wider spectrum to marketing and the building of one’s personal brand if used correctly. As with everything else in this life I hold on to the concept of balance. You can’t go wrong if you expose yourself to social media just enough to reap the benefits of its place in modern life whilst limiting your usage of social media so as to prevent yourself from neglecting life in this reality whilst overindulging in a digital reality.www.yogabybeauty.wordpress.com