Time moves on and things change — as we know, not always for the better. Examining our relationship with change came to mind when considering an installment of the NPR podcast series "Body Electric" and its analysis of "Zoom fatigue." Video calls for business or social meetups have skyrocketed over the past several years. Now being examined is just how this change in communications is affecting us physically and neurologically.

According to Gernot Muller-Putz, head of the Institute of Neural Engineering at Austria's Graz University of Technology, many people are reporting feeling drained and irritable after a day of video calls. He and his colleagues decided to see if they could find "objective, neurophysiological evidence of cognitive overload during long video meetings." For the study, they had 35 students take two 50-minute classes on a subject matter. One was held in person and the other online. "During those classes, he had students fill out questionnaires about how they felt," reports NPR. They also hooked them up to electrocardiograms to measure heart rate and electroencephalograms to measure brain activity.

"During the virtual lessons, participants' heart rates slowed, and brain wave activity indicated exhaustion and a struggle to focus just fifteen minutes into the class indicate that there is more fatigue in the videoconference condition," says Muller-Putz.

The researchers detected several reasons for this reaction. "Video calls often experience lag, and it's hard for the brain to quickly make sense of what's going on," notes Muller-Putz. "We can't rely on body language or eye contact to help us interpret a conversation. And we also get self-conscious on video calls and end up focusing more on ourselves than on the call. ... (They) could think, for example, what is my partner, my colleague thinking about me? Do I have the right shirt? How is my background?" These reactions are not happening when we sit at a table and talk to each other, he adds.

If the advent of video meetings is causing us problems, it also appears video gaming could be making us hard of hearing.

Another installment of the "Body Electric" podcast series revealed that, according to new research, there are risks that come with playing video games. Researchers reviewed 14 studies totaling nearly 54,000 adults and children worldwide and found that "when participants played video games, average sound levels often nearly exceeded or exceeded permissible sound exposure limits." These risks grow the more time people spend exposed to them.

Research revealed that "those who game regularly, as compared to those who do not, are likely to experience tinnitus (an internal sensation of a ringing, buzzing or roaring sound in one or both ears), measured high-frequency hearing loss, and self-perceived difficulties hearing," according to audiologist and epidemiologist Dr. Lauren Dillard, first author of the study. Tinnitus affects 10% to 25% of adults, says the report.

Says Dr. De Wet Swanepoel, a professor in the department of speech-language pathology and audiology at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, "This study is an eye-opener, highlighting the often-ignored issue of sound-induced hearing loss among the youth, particularly in relation to gaming."

"According to the World Health Organization, over 1 billion youth globally are estimated to be at risk of hearing loss due to unsafe listening habits," says Swanepoel.

"For many people, gaming can be a hobby or fun source of stress relief or community. But hearing damage is permanent, and exposure to high-intensity sounds when young could make kids more vulnerable to developing age-related hearing loss later," adds NPR.

The above examples are not the only ones out there of emerging areas where technology may not be our friend. The World Health Organization recently sent out a warning of the potential pitfalls in rushing to embrace artificial intelligence. According to Medical Express, the WHO has been examining "the likely dangers and benefits posed by AI large multi-modal models (LMMs), which are relatively new and are quickly being adopted in health."

While admitting that these multi-modal models hold potential, WHO warned of "documented risks that LMMs could produce false, inaccurate, biased or incomplete outcomes." The WHO has also issued recommendations on the ethics and governance of LMMs to assist "governments, tech firms and health care providers" to take advantage of the technology more safely.

Let us also welcome the "new normal," where technology plays a big part and where expressing low rates of well-being seem to be the norm. I have written in the past about the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index. Begun in 2008, it is a series of regular surveys of adults in the United States reporting on the population's well-being, behaviors and attitudes. "It categorizes people's experiences as 'thriving,' 'struggling' or 'suffering' based on how they rate their current life on a scale of 1 to 10, as well as what they anticipate in five years," reports CNN's Madeline Holcombe. For example, "those who rate their current life a 7 or higher and their anticipated life in five years an 8 or higher are classified as thriving."

The recently published data for 2023 found that overall, "the percentage of people in the United States who consider themselves to be thriving was on the decline in 2023 — with 52.1% falling into this category, compared with 55.5% in 2021 and 52.8% in 2022," reports Holcombe. According to the data, "the only other periods rated lower in thriving than 2023 occurred during the years of the Great Recession (2008-2009) and the first outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic (2020)."

"Everybody's looking for this magic pill that's going to change (feelings of low well-being), and what we really need is a shift in our expectations and a shift in our behaviors," notes Dr. Cynthia Ackrill, a former primary care physician and now a certified stress mastery educator.

Follow Chuck Norris through his official social media sites, on Twitter @chucknorris and Facebook's "Official Chuck Norris Page." He blogs at http://chucknorrisnews.blogspot.com. To find out more about Chuck Norris and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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