Do you spend a lot of time on your phone scrolling through your Instagram feed and the pages of your favorite sites? You may be suffering from "scroll nausea" also called virtual nausea or "cybersickness". A 2.0 phenomenon very specific to our (too) connected generation.
Dry eyes, headaches, sleep disorders … We know that screens have harmful consequences on our health. But there is another disorder, less known, but nevertheless very real, from which some also suffer: it is virtual nausea, sometimes called "scroll nausea" or "cybersickness" in English.
American professor Cynthia M. Bulik, from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, told us in the magazine Psychology Today. This phenomenon manifests itself in the stomach aches or dizziness that some people experience when scrolling through their Instagram, Twitter or Facebook feeds on the screen of their cell phones or computers.
The "nausea of the scroll", the virtual equivalent of motion sickness
Virtual nausea had already been mentioned in work published in 2018 in the journal American Physiological Society. The authors, who called this disorder a "cyber disease", then spoke of "sensory inadequacy", comparable to motion sickness. It is the contrast between the stillness of the body and visual mobility that creates a sensory imbalance. When we scroll through our messages or our news feeds on our phone, our body is still, while before our eyes, the movement is amplified (gifs, videos, advertisements …).
This feeling of nausea can also occur when the images on a large screen are fast and send a lot of information per minute, such as at the cinema for example or during a game of video games. “A coworker who was an early adopter of the iPad was showing me his new device. He started scrolling through different features. A few seconds after he started scrolling, my stomach completely turned and I had to run outside to keep from throwing up. It took an hour for my stomach to calm down before I could return to the conference ", says Professor Cynthia M. Bulik, who likens it to the reactions of our bodies when we "walking backwards" in the corridors of a mid-air plane.
What are the symptoms of virtual nausea?
According to the magazine Tech Times, "scroll nausea" causes the following symptoms:
- Headache,
- Want to vomit,
- Dizziness,
- Form of confusion,
- Need to sit down a bit,
- Ocular migraine …
This disorder is not simply caused by what we see, but by the too high frequency of our observation. Hence the need to cut screens as soon as possible and to put in place some tips to remedy it …
Some tips to avoid "scroll nausea"
To remedy this, a few tips are good to put in place. First of all, it is recommended that you reduce your time spent on screens. Remember that blue light from phones and computers is also harmful to our health. All the more reason to disconnect and do a digital detox. For example, we can deactivate unnecessary notifications in order to reduce movements on our phone a little.
For those who work all day in front of a computer, taking breaks is essential. We walk, we stretch our legs, we take a coffee break, in short, we let our eyes rest, away from the screens.
Another simple trick that can make the difference: increase the font size and adjust the brightness.
We also prefer to use the arrow keys rather than the mouse to scroll on the computer. For smartphones, you can also check the "Reduce movement" box in your Settings. A useful setting to reduce the effects of cyber disease.
See also: 5 creative and anti-stress activities