Has anyone experienced dizziness or creeping nausea while using a smart phone or watching their favorite movie? Well, it is not because of what you ate or what you drank. It is something anyone never thought about. This dizziness is caused by those gadgets you were using.
Technology nowadays is so advanced that it can cause a certain kind of sickness. This is called digital motion sickness or cybersickness. The cases are becoming more progressive. Medical and media experts said that cybersickness causes a person to feel woozy or dizzy. The feeling one has if he or she is on a boat and the sea is stirring. Cybersickness can be experience from watching moving digital content.
According to The New York Times, medical director of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Balance and Vestibular Center, Dr. Steven Rauch said that visually induced motion sickness or digital motion sickness is resulted from a basic disparity of sensory inputs. Dr. Rauch is also a professor of otolaryngology at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Rauch said, "Your sense of balance is different than other senses in that it has lots of inputs." He added, "When those inputs don't agree, that's when you feel dizziness and nausea."
The common motion sickness lets a person feel the movement in his joints, muscles, and also in the coils of the inner ear. But the person doesn't see the movement. It's very much the opposite if a person is experiencing cybersickness. A person can see the movement.
Digital motion sickness can happen to anyone. A number of studies show that 50% to 80% of people can experience it. Studies also show that it greatly affects female, especially with those who have history of migraines or concussion.
Effects of digital motion sickness can be long lasting and strong. People will experience difficulty in tracking images, hand-eye coordination, and visual focusing. Even a person's posture can be affected.
It is time for people to consider the duration and extent of watching digital media and using smart phone.
