Hi lovelies,

Living in the modern age is - in so many ways - a vast improvement on the past. We’ve got more information at our fingertips, it’s easier to travel, and we as people are more free than ever to live the lives we want. It would be churlish, surely, to complain about being born into this digital age. Wouldn’t it?

Well, yes and no. While we certainly have advantages in the present that people in the past would have loved to have, nothing is ever as simple as it seems, and living in the modern age has its drawbacks. For all that we have the conveniences of a 2020 lifestyle, we also have all the unintended consequences of so many years of progress. In a number of surprising ways, living in the modern era might even be making you ill. Surprised to hear it? Well, read on and you’ll see…

We can’t switch off like we used to
It will come as little or no surprise that mental illness is one way in which the modern age threatens our health. Chief among the problems engendered by living in 2020, is the fact that we are expected to be “on” all the time. If you have a job and a cell phone, then there is a real chance that you’re linked to your job 24/7 - with some employers expecting you to monitor, read and reply to emails even when you’ve “finished” for the day. This leads to extreme stress. Imagine for a moment you were never allowed to leave the office - now ask yourself if this “always on” lifestyle is really that much different?

The modern world is shiny and loud
Okay, so the terminology in the heading may be unscientific - but it’s true. As urban sprawl grows, it is becoming harder and harder to find somewhere to live away from bright lights and noise. The more light you’re seeing, the harder it is to wind down, and even when you do fall asleep you’re not getting the quality of shuteye that you need. Additionally, signs are that people living in cities are more prone to hearing loss, needing to seek out solutions from https://www.listenlively.com/ and similar thanks to constant loud noise. The bright, shiny modern world has been shown to impact health concerns like blood pressure and even cognitive performance.

We’ve become too reliant on some forms of medicine
Modern medicine is a wonder. There are treatments that can bring people back from Stage 4 cancer to being free of the illness, while a condition such as HIV, which was once considered an existential threat to mankind, is now largely manageable. This is good news, and most medical advances are along these lines - by and large, we have more to thank modern treatments for than we have to curse.

However, as noted at usatoday.com, the existence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is something that we need to reckon with. Patients have, for too long, been too willing to ask for antibiotics for simple viruses that they won’t even cure - and doctors too willing to prescribe them thanks to time pressure and overwork. Antibiotics are only ever going to be effective in treating bacterial infection - and even in cases of such infection, should probably only be prescribed when the issue is more acute. If we use them for any minor concern, all we do is make antibiotics less effective when they’re really needed.

The above are some examples of how, just because we live in the modern age, we’re not somehow luckier than the generations that went before. We have our own issues, and they’re real - but just like with the problems of past generations, we’re working on curing them, too!