Even before Smart Phones and Tablets, the average American spent more than 90% of their time indoors.
The shaded lifestyle of the indoor life is alien to the environment in which the body evolved and there's a growing amount of evidence that spending too much time indoors is detrimental to our health.
Two health problems possibly made worse by our indoor lifestyles include myopia and various allergies.
In the city-state of Singapore, where children spend a lot of time indoors because there are no gardens for them to play in, myopia affects 85% of young people compared to just 25% of the older generation.
This increase in myopia is not hereditary, and neither is it caused by spending too much time reading or staring at screens, it's much more fundamental: the human eye needs exposure to good quality light in order to fully develop, and most children in Singapore simply aren't getting sufficient exposure!
Our increasingly indoor-lifestyle also means that many of us are not getting sufficient vitamin D, and research shows that vitamin D deficiency is increasingly linked with the prevalence of allergies. With every generation since the 19th century, the number of children with allergies has seemingly increased exponentially.
For example, research from Australia suggests that vitamin D deficiency is linked to an elevenfold increase in the likelihood of peanut allergy and a tripling of the prevalence of egg allergy.
Perhaps we need to start planning our cities so they provide adequate sunlight as well as shelter?
**Sources **
The Guardian (May 2019) - Vybarr Cregan-Reid - For the sake of our health, we need to kick the indoor habit.
Pic source - https://www.theartofdesignmagazine.com/7395-2/