High Blood Pressure can be caused by the Internet
We all take the Internet for granted, but what happens when you see the dreaded ‘page not found’ message or your Broadband Router is telling you that your ISP’s service is down?
Are you feeling stressed by the Internet?
Well, in an increasing number of us, this is causing us to have feelings of stress or anxiety, which can lead to raised blood pressure and other associated health problems linked to stress. Unfortunately the signs of high blood pressure (hypertension) are hard to identify, and so this condition often goes undiagnosed. Also most people would not naturally associate blood pressure and software in the same breath.
Discomgoogolation
The problem is so widespread that there is now a word which describes it – discomgoogolation – which describes the stress that people feel when they are unable to go online. It is based on the adjective ‘discombobulated’ which means having self-possession upset, being frustrated or being thrown into confusion. The scale of the problem may be a significant factor in the growing number of high blood pressure causes.
- visible signs of stress
In the United Kingdom it is estimated that a significant 44 percent of the population may suffer from this condition when the trigger condition arises, with an estimated 25 percent or more who took part in a recent survey of 2100 people by the YouGov polling organisation, reported increased feelings of stress when they were prevented from going online by a technical failure.
76% of the population now admit that they cannot live without the Internet
The survey also found that a staggering 76 percent of the respondents felt that they could not live without being able to access the Internet. So the life source of modern communications may also be responsible for raising our blood pressure. This is understandable as the internet has spread into most homes across the United Kingdom, with over half of the population using the web between one and four hours per day, and with 19 percent of people spending more time online than they do with their family during the average week. The condition was discovered by psychologist Dr David Lewis whose research involved measurement of heart rate and brain activity linked to normal internet usage, and monitoring the body’s reaction to problem scenarios where the internet was unavailable. Dr. Lewis commented that “The proliferation of broadband has meant for the first time in history [that] we’ve entered a culture of ‘instant answers’ … and we have become addicted to the web. When [we are] unable to get online, discomgoogolation takes over”. Forty-seven percent of those polled believed that the Internet was more important in people’s lives than religion, with one in five people paying the Internet more attention than their partner.