Charles Darwin used his theory of natural selection to explain evolution. That is, organisms are able to adapt and survive in their environment better than their predecessors did. These organisms pass their most favorable features to their offspring, which continue the cycle.

However, technology is already interfering with natural selection—at least in humans. Almost every tech item out there today—from our smartphones to the massive advances in medicine—are altering our lives faster than natural selection could.

People with unfavorable conditions are surviving and passing these traits to their offspring. At the same time, others are developing new health challenges causes by overreliance on technology.

10 Cesarean Sections Make Women’s Hips Narrower

Cesarean sections are leaving women with smaller pelvises. Centuries ago, women with small pelvises died during childbirth along with their children, who could possess the genes for small pelvises.

However, these women are surviving these days as C-sections become mainstream. They are also able to birth children with the genes and even female children with narrow pelvises, who also pass the trait to their offspring. Studies have shown that 36 of every 1,000 children born today have a narrow pelvis. In the 1960s, it was just 30 of every 1,000.^[1]

At this point, some would start to wonder why natural selection did not leave all women with large pelvises. That is because the human body evolved to prefer smaller babies that could pass through the narrower pelvises instead of larger babies that could pass through wider pelvises.

Interestingly, C-sections are slowly changing this. Babies are becoming larger despite their mothers’ smaller pelvises. This means that C-sections will become more common in the future.

9 Mobile Phones Are Causing Horns To Grow In Our Skulls

We frequently bend our necks downward to interact with our smartphones. This is causing the development of a bony, hornlike structure at the lower end of the back of our skulls. Scientists call these little horns “external occipital protuberances.”

The horns are growing because the bent head delivers severe pressure at the point where the neck muscles meet the skull. The skull responds by elongating the bone at its rear tip, causing the extension. People with an external occipital protuberance can often feel it with their fingers. You may even be able to see it on a bald person.

An external occipital protuberance may appear no matter what we have in our hands or right in front of us. The only condition is that we bend our heads frequently, which is what smartphones cause us to do. Books do, too, but not as frequently as smartphones. Besides, not everyone reads books.^[2]

8 Search Engines Are Making Us Forgetful

Imagine you were asked some random question such as when Martin Van Buren became the president of the United States? What do you do? Recall the answer without batting an eye, or fire up your search engine? Most people will use their search engines because they probably do not remember the date offhand. Some do not even know he was a former US president.

This is what researchers call the “Google effect,” the likelihood of forgetting information you could quickly search for on the Internet. The condition was revealed in a 2011 study by researchers Betsy Sparrow, Jenny Liu, and Daniel Wegner.^[3]

The researchers found that people often considered checking the Internet whenever they were asked questions they could not answer. They were also likelier to forget information if they knew it would be available somewhere—even if it was not the Internet. An example would be your spouse’s phone number stored on your phone.

The Google effect happens because we often remember significant information and forget unimportant facts. However, we can also forget the important info if we can access it somewhere. As to our original question, no need to Google it—Martin Van Buren became president in 1837.

7 Farming Made Our Jaws Smaller

Early hunter-gatherers had large faces with prominent jaws and teeth. However, all these started to disappear when we dumped the hunter-gatherer lifestyle for farming 12,000 years ago. Today, we are left with small jaws without enough space for our teeth.

Hunter-gatherers had large jaws because they did a lot of chewing. They ate uncooked meat and plants that were often tough and required lots of jaw strength to cut and chew. This made their jaws stronger. However, our jaws became weaker as we switched to farming softer crops that did not require superior jaw strength to chew. Our jaws further weakened as we switched to cooking our meals.^[4]

The effects of our newfound farming lifestyle did not stop there. The switch also made our bones lighter and less dense, most especially around the joints. However, this was not caused by the softer food but the less strenuous lifestyle of the farmers who did not need to stalk, chase, and kill prey like the hunter-gatherers.

6 Processed Foods Are Changing Children’s Faces

The food eaten by children often determines the strength and shape of their faces—skulls, jaws, and all. However, the majority of children born nowadays have abnormal faces caused by the massive amounts of processed foods they start to consume right after birth.

This is because natural foods contain enough nutrients required for proper facial development. Besides, as we mentioned earlier, natural foods often force children to chew with their jaws, making their jaws and skulls considerably stronger. Processed foods often reduce the possibility of chewing, leading to considerably weaker jaws.^[5]

Today, our overdependence on processed foods has made our skulls 5–10 percent smaller than those of early humans from the Paleolithic Era. This problem has been observed in animals, too. Young animals reared on processed foods often end up with jaw problems that are similar to those of humans.

5 Social Media Is Destroying Our Lives

Social media has been linked to a myriad of problems including depression, hyperactivity, anxiety, low self-esteem, and loss of concentration. This is worse in teenagers who form the bulk of social media users. They often suffer from the fear of missing out (FOMO), which makes them check their social media handles more than necessary.

However, the link between social media and these health problems is blurred as there is not enough research to establish such associations. Some critics even say that social media only appears to cause depression and loneliness because most users already have those characteristics and only turn to social media to meet people.

The critics say this even though a study has already found that social media does cause depression and loneliness. The study involved 143 University of Pennsylvania students split into two groups. One group reduced their time on social media while the other continued to use it normally.

The study revealed that the individuals who spent less time on social media enjoyed improved mental health and lower levels of depression and loneliness than people who used it more often.

Interestingly, FOMO and anxiety levels decreased in both groups even though researchers expected higher levels in people who used social media more frequently. Researchers believe that this was because the users from both groups became more aware of their use of social media while the study lasted.^[6]

4 Smartphones Have Reduced Our Attention Span

Our brains have a very advanced concept of time. They are able to predict future events as we engage in our daily activities. For instance, the brain determines the best time to stretch your hand for a handshake—just so your hand will meet the other person’s hand at the right moment.

Our brains also apply this concept of time when we interact with our smartphones. For instance, if you check your phone every five minutes, your brain soon predicts this behavior and reminds you to check your phone at five-minute intervals.^[7]

Before long, the habit interferes with your attention span, making you unable to concentrate on whatever you are doing. Instead, you are thinking about grabbing your phone to see the latest happenings on social media. Studies have found that phone addicts make less use of the brain regions responsible for focus. They also require greater efforts to concentrate on a task.

3 The Internet Is Making Us Unable To Cope Offline

In 2011, Professor David Levy of the University of Washington’s Information School coined the term “popcorn brain” to describe the effects of technology on our cognitive abilities (that is, our abilities to think and recall information). People with popcorn brain are so engrossed in their online lives that they become uninterested and unable to cope with their lives offline.

Levy came up with this concept after investigating how the Internet affected our lives offline. In his study, he discovered that we are always interested in reading every new email and message and visiting websites, hoping to find some new information. Our brain soon becomes used to this trend and often wants us to seek some new information every time.

This often leaves us with short attention spans, high expectations of finding some new information, and the inability to live our normal lives offline. Interestingly, Levy’s study supports earlier research that revealed that students who spent 10 hours a day on the Internet have lower cognitive abilities than students who spent just two hours.^[8]

2 Technology Is Causing Nearsightedness In Children

Myopia (nearsightedness) is the latest health problem linked to the infiltration of technology into our daily lives. The statistics are terrible in high-tech countries like China where 90 percent of teenagers suffer from myopia. Sixty years ago, only 10–-20 percent of Chinese teenagers suffered from nearsightedness.

Myopia levels are also rising in Europe, the United States, and South Korea. In Seoul, over 96 percent of 19-year-old males suffer from myopia. Estimates indicate that 2.5 billion people (one-third of the world’s population) will suffer from myopia by 2020.

Teenagers are developing myopia because they spend so much time indoors and away from natural sunlight, which is important for the perfect development of the eyes. This is why myopia levels are low among Australian teenagers, who spend lots of time outside. Researchers believe that this trend could be reversed by exposing children to three hours of sunlight every day.^[9]

1 Smartphones Are Causing Insomnia

Smartphones always get a bad rap for interfering with sleep. Well! That is because they really do. Taking your smartphone to bed is the best way to end up with insomnia.

Smartphones cause insomnia because they are distracting. The sounds and vibrations of calls, notifications, and messages can stop people from sleeping or even wake them from sleep. People who take their phones to bed can also end up checking social media and more, causing them to sleep much later than they intended.

If that was not enough, smartphones and almost every other tech gadget with a screen emits a blue light that the brain mistakes for daylight. This causes the brain to lower the secretion of melatonin—the hormone that tells our body it is time for bed. This is usually not a problem during the day but quickly becomes one when we are trying to get some sleep at night.^[10]

We can all agree, the general consensus among the majority of hard working people today, that our beds become our best friend at the end of each and every long enduring work day.  Up early and to bed late, with a million and one to-do list items in between, the day is never long enough to get it all done.

If we had the choice between the to-do list and a never ending night’s sleep, we’d probably all fall for the latter.  Unfortunately, a Snow White induced nap isn’t possible for all of us in the non-Disney world, so I’m sure most of us would take at least one good restful night’s sleep every once in a blue moon instead.

A consistent good night’s sleep is at the top of every health list.  Be it ways to lose weight, avoid the flu, stay young forever, or lessen chronic pain.  Right next to staying hydrated, a restful night is the key factor in staying healthy and creating a life of longevity.  Our sleeping habits directly affect our health: mental, physical, and emotional.

Lack of sleep creates heightened stress hormones, weakened immune system, and ultimately a shorter life span.  So what happens when a restful sleep isn’t possible?  Are you doing everything Google says to do when it comes to creating a peaceful bedroom atmosphere, turning off all of your electronics, avoiding caffeine and exercise after 2 p.m. everyday and finding the best memory foam mattress?

As much as it pains to admit it, the very mattress you call your best friend every night could be the culprit killing your REM cycles and ultimately your health.

Now that I have the attention of all you sleepy little princes and princesses, I’d like to give you a gift in the form of a shiny, red apple laced with a sleeping potion that will help you drift off into dreamland for at least a solid 8 hours, but since that isn’t possible I’ll give it to you in form of list outlining the top ten reasons your old mattress is destroying your health.

10. Your old mattress equals restless nights equals no sleep equals being tired.

This may be the most obvious point, but it is important to note nonetheless.  If your mattress is old and uncomfortable you will most assuredly not feel cozy and snuggled, which means you’ll be tossing and turning, waking up constantly, never really achieving your full REM cycles and ultimately wake up tired and feeling more exhausted each morning. This will lead to all of the symptoms we talk about in the following 2-10 points.

Being tired leads to a lot of pretty bad outcomes. If you can’t sleep you can’t function on the most basic levels preventing you from making better decisions for your health on a daily basis.

9. Your old mattress equals all the pain.

So.  Much.  Pain.  An old mattress starts to lose its shape, it becomes lumpy and saggy.  It loses firmness and foundation that is supposed to keep you supported.  When your body isn’t supported it will put pressure on your joints, tilt and angle your body in a contorted fashion giving you all those lovely “kinks” in your muscles, tendons, and nerves.  If you are in constant pain from the sleep that is supposed to be refreshing your body and mind you won’t be able to move easily and fluidly.  This will most likely lead to a more sedentary lifestyle of now not only being uncomfortable in your bed but also all day every day.

8. Your old mattress equals little bugs plus allergens.

We all know about the microscopic organisms that hang out all over your body and make your skin literally crawl just thinking about the little critters.  Even the cleanest person in the world can’t escape the teeny tiny bugs that eat our dead skin cells and bathe in our body oils.

The bugs, the skin cells, and the oils all collect and build up on our mattress, blankets, pillows, and pajamas.  The build up, no matter how many times we wash the linens, creates a prime breeding ground for molds, bacteria, and even bigger bugs – dust mites.

Hey so now that you know about the dirty little inner city that you’re constructing on a nightly basis let’s think about how breathing all of that in adds to your allergen issues and creates throat and lung complications.  Yummy.

7. Your old mattress may equal bed bugs.

I’m just gonna leave this here for your reading pleasure – Bed Bugs are Pure Evil.  However, just to summarize I’d like to reiterate how evil these little buggers are, they are easy to contract and oh so difficult (and expensive!) to rid yourself of.  They cause health problems and diseases.  They suck your blood, reproduce faster than rabbits, and are resistant to everything but a very specific set of procedures that should be held under lock and key to prevent any future mutational and evolutionary resistance.  Being a clean person has no effect on them, let’s face it a brand new mattress is just as susceptible as an old one.

A small history lesson: bed bugs weren’t always this savvy, they were almost completely eradicated completely but then quickly evolved into the strong little devils we now know and have to put up with today.

6. Your old mattress equals so many health problems.

Lack of sleep means more stress hormones, it means mental inconsistencies which leads to poor decision making, followed by poor health choices such as what we eat or the risks we take.  Being exhausted wears on the body to the point of no return.  Here’s the shortlist: obesity, weakened immune systems, heart conditions, increased stress and anxiety, blood pressure issues, possibility of stroke, diabetes, and a higher risk of an earlier death!  Let’s not to mention what the mattresses are made of, materials and toxins we breathe in and soak up through our skin every night constantly, just to name a few: boric acid, formaldehyde, petrochemicals, and polyvinyl chloride (aka PVC).

5. Your old mattress may equal sleep apnea or at the very least, snoring.

Sleep apnea is serious, and there are many kinds and causes.  Some doctors believe some mattress types could make the problem worse.  But at the very least, if you aren’t being supported properly by your mattress it may kink your body in certain positions making you snore at night.  Even if you don’t have a partner sleeping next to you, snoring can cause breathing issues and noise pollution in the room adding to your restless night.

4. Your old mattress equals more mental clutter and thus more physical chaos.

Sleeping less efficiently effects the efficiency of the mind and body in ways other than pure immune health.  Our brains refresh while sleeping, clearing away all the clutter and unnecessary chaos.  When we don’t sleep the chaos and clutter remain and it all continues to build.  It causes memory issues, critical thinking skills, depression, impaired judgement, physical accidents and affects the ability to learn new skills and abilities and retain or retrieve information.

3. Your old mattress equals aging skin.

Lack of sleep raises your stress hormones, which wears and tears on every single micro millimeter of your body, including the biggest living, breathing organism – your skin.  Eye bags, wrinkles, and fine lines all around your face show that wear and tear and it shows unfavorable to your chronological age.  Good sleep not only keeps our brains in good working order, but also allows all of our organs to rest, giving them a chance to build immunity to the cold hard world we expose them to every day.

2. Your old mattress equals less nookie.

Exhaustion and physical tension causes a lower libido.  Desire and interest as well as initiative all decrease when you’re tired, your body aches, and your health suffers.

1. Your old mattress equals your illegal office.

Using your bedroom as your personal in-home office, and your mattress as your giant rolling office chair is a huge no-no. Electronics and work related activity creates an atmosphere not conducive to relaxation, quality time with your partner, and most of all… sleeping.  The bright unnatural lights and physical and mental activity create constant brain stimulation, this does not in any way help set-up for a peaceful night of relaxation and rest.

At the end of the day, your mattress is an important part of your every single night.  It is beyond important but imperative.  It needs to be thought of as another consistent relationship in your life.  Just like your work, your partner and family you hopefully spend a solid 8 hours or more a night with your mattress.  It needs to be one of quality, consistency, and competency individual to you and your needs.  The financial pains and headache mattress shopping can bring will all well be worth it every morning you wake up feeling refreshed and healthy.

Sleep easy, my pretties.

Average smartphone use has climbed so high that, as Vox reported in December 2020, when major tech companies like Facebook and Google tried to implement services to moderate daily use by their customers, the efforts were unsuccessful. If even the very entities that stand to profit from constant online engagement admit there is a problem, make efforts to correct it, and fail, then it seems likely that the problem isn’t going to at least endure if not exacerbate. So let’s try to get a more solid understanding of the nature of the harm excessive access to the internet through mobile phones is causing us.

We’re not talking about the social or psychological harm of phone addiction. We’re not even talking specifically about disrupted sleep patterns. We’re going to go body part by body part, describing the damage overuse of the mobile device does over time. As the old saying goes, let’s start from the top.

10. Pineal Gland

While the constant access to updates is well-known to have negative effects on a users’ ability to relax and fall asleep, many phones have more direct negative physical effects. The blue light that is the default on a smartphone screen mimics the color temperature of sunlight, and thus it subconsciously tells the pineal gland that the user is in daytime conditions, which blocks the flow of melatonin that induces a sleep state. Even for many people who can get the sleep needed anyway disrupting the chemical flow can induce tiredness during the day.

On the bright side, if you’ll pardon the expression, tests showed that very effective countermeasures exist for those who can’t kick the habit of using their smartphone in bed. An evaluation published by the American Academy of Optometry in March 2020 found that switching a smartphone to night mode for bedtime usage lowered the potency of the effects by about 93%. Additionally, an article on the subject by Cleveland Clinic reported that not using the smartphone as little as 30 minutes before bedtime offset the effects.

9. Temporal Lobes

Temporal lobes are involved in the control of involuntary biological processes, most notably the beating of a heart. Among epileptics, they are the portions of the brain that are malfunctioning during blackouts, chest pains, and other symptoms of a seizure. According to Economic Times, prolonged use of smartphones has been found to aggravate seizures. This is no trivial matter for epileptics, as there is roughly an annual 0.1% chance of becoming victim to Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy, and that’s among those that are otherwise healthy.

Fortunately, according to A. K. Sahani, the senior consultant for the Indian Spinal Injuries Center, keeping phone calls under an hour’s length significantly reduces the deleterious effects. Even for those who need to use the device for that long, using earpieces instead of holding the phone up to the head is a largely effective means of preventing the negative effects to the autonomous systems. For those who are not epileptic and think this is not advice that matters for them, bear in mind that a 2016 study reported by the Iranian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences found evidence that prolonged exposure left mice more vulnerable to seizures, indicated even those who are not diagnosed epileptics can suffer similar damage.

8. Eyes

It turns out evidence indicates that the blue light of smartphone screens doesn’t only negatively affect the pineal gland, as you’ll soon see. Or perhaps as you may not see. In 2018, researchers at the University of Toledo tested exposing cells to the shorter wavelengths of blue light. The results were that those infused with retinal, a chemical released by the eyes, suffered damage that tissue without retinol in it did not. This could be disastrous for photoreceptor cells in the eyes, as damage to those cells is permanent.

The sort of damage it is postulated that smartphone blue light worsens is called macular degeneration. This condition is most prevalent among people above the age of 60. So for our older viewers that are hesitant to begin using a mobile device, Dr. Ajith Karunarathne just gave you a great medical excuse.

7. Ears

No it’s no surprise that pumping loud music directly into your ear canals is at the worst extremely risky for the quality of one’s hearing. However research from the University of Arkansas for Medical Services found that even if the volume is kept low, it can still damage hearing. As Dr. Allison Woodall explained, using a phone for over an hour a day can lessen a listener’s ability to hear sounds between 2,000 and 8,000 hertz (which includes a wide range of human speech) because of the electromagnetic waves emitted by the device rather than the strict sound waves.

As with other entries, there are solutions to those whose lifestyles make it infeasible to just decide to use a smartphone less. Woodall highly recommended the use of the hands free option or speaker phone to get the device away from the ear. Additionally, in 2021 Reuters reported that studies found that wireless bluetooth ear pieces lowered the electromagnetic exposure by as much as 1,000%, and that AirPods were an equally safe solution.

6. Teeth and Jaw

If the thought of a smartphone habit is making you anxious enough to grind your teeth, research by Tel Aviv University has given solid evidence that many if not most heavy smartphone users can relate. Tel Aviv University’s School of Dental Medicine was in an especially good position to test the hypothesis. There are many ultraorthodox Jews in Israel who use more basic cell phones without access to social media platforms, so it was a relatively easy matter to acquire a substantial study group of non-Smartphone users.

A study of 600 participants found that among smartphone users, 45% reported that they suffered from teeth grinding, compared to 14% among the orthodox, a more than 200% higher rate. Additionally, 29% of smartphone users reported that it was severe enough that they felt noticeable jaw pain while among the orthodox it was only 14%. In many cases, the harm was severe enough that joint damage occured in the jaw.

5. Neck

There was a particularly cutting meme in 2016 which portrayed a player of Pokemon Go suffering from a grotesquely elongated neck that a Pokemon rode on. Turns out that was probably more cruelly accurate than the artist intended. As reported by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy in 2014, when smartphone users look down to type out a text message, the forward tilt of their head shifts more strain to the top vertebrae. We’re talking substantially more strain here. A model published by The Guardian went into detail on the effects: Tilting down 15° adds 125% more strain then holding a head level. At 30°, it’s about 233% more. By a 60° tilt it is up by 400%. The degree of pain, numbness, and general dislocation this can lead to has been known to require surgery to correct. A study published by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found problems have set in for heavy users as early as adolescence or even in childhood.

Solutions for this have included switching more to old-fashioned audio calls over texting. Of course, we saw in entries such as #7 that holding the phone up to the user’s ear can have some negative effects too. For those who’d rather continue texting, there are a number of exercises that can be used to treat the effects. For example there’s “chest opening,” which involves clasping the hands behind the head and squeezing shoulder blades back for 10 to 20 seconds. There are also multiple yoga stretches that are productive treatments. It could be argued, though, that all this will use up the time that a smartphone user saves by texting. Still, better than pain or surgery.

4. Heart

It’s nothing new that mobile devices are not good for heart health, considering federally funded research into the subject began in 2010. The study surprisingly found that younger members of the control group tended to suffer the most extreme cases of heart arrhythmia, palpitations, flutters, and other conditions. The effects of smartphones have been so pronounced that they’ve been put forward that they have changed both the most common day of the week and the time of day for cardiac arrests.

We do wish to caution that the findings indicate that the effects are from behavioral changes instead of due to the electrical processes of the devices. A 2012 study by Annals of Medical and Health Science Research found that the electromagnetic processes of a smartphone do not significantly affect hearts. However, the US Food and Drug Administration recommends that anyone with a pacemaker keep it at least six inches from their smartphone at all times.

3. Elbow

As if Text Neck weren’t enough, by 2009 “Cell Phone Elbow” had become a commonly used nickname for the discomforts of heavy smartphone use. It was actually a rebranding of Cubital Tunnel Syndrome, which had been recorded in medical journals since at least 1958. How it works, or fails to work depending on how you look at it, is that holding up a smartphone for a prolonged period pinches the ulnar nerve in the forearm and at times moves it out of the proper position and into a place where it can be damaged. It’s similar to carpal tunnel syndrome though much less common before people began propping the arms up on their elbows to watch their smartphone screens at night.

Once again, for those who want to avoid surgical procedure Cubital Tunnel Release, exercises are there to come to the rescue. Popular Science suggests putting arm curls and overhead presses into a workout routine as a preventative measure. User who have already noticed mild pain or numbness should begin to heavily massage their forearm and outer forearm.

2. Wrist

If you were worried that people are becoming so weak that just the effort exerted to hold up a phone is becoming an issue for us, it’s not the act of holding up the phone that’s the problem. It’s swiping the fingers that we should worry about. The unusual ways that fingers move to scroll across sites on smartphones have been linked to conditions such as tendonitis, chronic pain, and even loss of use of the index finger and thumb, a malady nicknamed “trigger finger.” An October 2021 Washington Post article on the subject boosted the phrase “smartphone pinkie” for the impact of excessive phone use on the digits, but fortunately that doesn’t seem to have caught on.

John Hopkins University’s orthopedic surgeon Duc Nguyen’s suggested treatments included often changing position on how the smartphone was held, using handheld devices, or getting a pop socket to distribute the weight more evenly across the fingers. It should be mentioned, though, that Ventura Orthopedics surgeon Josh Gluck told Slate magazine that the fingers are not connected to the ulnar nerve, so looking out for the fingers and wrist doesn’t risk causing  more trouble with Cell Phone Elbow.

1. Sciatic Nerve

And now we have reached the end, both of the list and the rear. See, the sciatic nerve is the longest nerve in the human body, and it runs from the lower spine down to the foot. Placing smartphones in back pants pockets has been determined to put unnatural pressure on the sciatic nerve, like a more direct version of the discomfort heavy smartphone use places on the ulnar nerve.

If you’re wondering why smartphones would cause this problem and not something like, say, a gun belt or a tool belt, well, those actually do as well. In all cases, a simple and effective treatment seems to be moving the problem device to the front. For those who are worried that a front pocket smartphone presents a risk to the sperm, don’t. In 2014 the University of Utah Health Hospitals and Clinics reported that mobile devices had at most an 8% effect on sperm counts, meaning more than enough healthy sperm that avoiding sciatic nerve problems were worth the tradeoff.