The internet has made connecting with new business partners, discovering health information and finding long lost friends, easier and cheaper. However, while digital connections have distinct advantages, digital dependence does not. You’ve likely seen — or have been part of — a family outing where one by one, everyone pulls out their phone to check notifications, text messages or email.

It happens in restaurants, on busy streets and commuter trains. The desire to be rewarded by your phone may have even been so great that you endangered your life by attempting to read a text or send one while driving. Toddlers get their own devices to keep them busy and 10-year-old children are carrying their own phones.¹ Where once children talked on the phone, set up face-to-face time and engaged with real people in real situations, they now spend hours keeping a “streak” alive.

Dependence on digital communication presents several physical and emotional health challenges. Mitochondrial damage, exposure to electromagnetic radiation and failing social skills are just the tip of an iceberg that may have deeper roots than anticipated. Recent research has now identified immediate physical symptoms that occur when your digital devices are just out of reach.