Impacts of Modern Technology on Individuals

Modern technology such as phones, laptops and fast internet changes how you work, study and relax, and those changes can help or harm you as an individual. The effects on individuals are often grouped into flexibility, working styles and mental wellbeing.

Mental wellbeing is how you feel about yourself and your life. It can improve when technology lets you move away from a stressful place and still stay in touch: if a crowded, noisy room makes you anxious, you can work quietly on a laptop elsewhere. That is separation from a stressful environment. Being able to decide when you start and stop also helps you feel in control of your own schedule, for example shifting work so you can collect a younger brother from school.

It can be harmed too. Loneliness is feeling alone even when you could contact other people, and depression is a low mood that lasts and affects daily life. They are different, but long stretches of working alone can contribute to both.

The same technology affects two people differently. A step-count app might motivate you by showing you walked further than yesterday, while someone else could feel anxious every time they miss a daily target.

Commuting is the travelling you do to reach your workplace, plus any journeys between workplaces during the day. Remote working means doing your job somewhere other than the workplace, usually home. A virtual meeting is a meeting held over a video call, so nobody travels to be in the same room. On a remote-working day, the journey to work is not needed, and a virtual meeting removes the journey to that meeting, so both can cut the time you spend commuting.

For example, Amina is a trainee surveyor. Her weekly safety briefing used to mean a 50-minute bus ride to the depot and 50 minutes back. The briefing is now a video call, so she saves 1 hour 40 minutes of travel that week.

What the saved time is worth

Saved commuting time is free for other activities, such as an evening class, cooking a proper meal or helping a family member. Less commuting can also make you more productive, because you do not arrive tired from the journey. The time and energy you would have spent travelling can go into your work, so you finish more tasks in the same working day and still have time for the rest of your life.

Remote working means doing your job away from the workplace, usually at home, using a computer and an internet connection. It can be useful, but it can also make parts of a job harder for the individual.

Poor internet connection

If your internet is slow or drops out, you may miss part of a video call, wait a long time to open shared files, or lose work that has not saved. For example, a trainee accountant on a video call might freeze while being shown how to correct a spreadsheet, so they have to ask for the explanation again and fall behind.

Distractions at home

Home is not always a quiet office. A doorbell, a pet, a delivery, or family members asking questions can break your concentration. This matters because switching attention makes tasks take longer and mistakes more likely; someone writing a report may lose their train of thought every time a family member starts a conversation.

Loss of work-life balance or routine

Because your work happens where you live, the line between work and rest can blur. You might start earlier, skip breaks, or answer messages late in the evening because your device is always nearby. Losing the routine of a set start, lunch and finish can make it harder to switch off, leaving you tired and less able to relax.

Connection is feeling close to other people and part of a group. Isolation is being apart from others for long periods, with little contact. Technology affects both, and this matters for wellbeing, which is how well you feel in yourself.

Staying in contact

Messaging, video calls and shared online spaces make it quick and cheap to keep in touch with people far away. A teenager whose grandparents live abroad can video call them each week, and a group of friends can plan a weekend together in minutes. Contact like this supports wellbeing: you can share problems, arrange to meet and feel part of other people's lives.

Contact is not the same as feeling connected

Being able to send messages does not guarantee that you feel connected. Remote contact is often short and aimed at a task, such as a quick message about bringing the equipment to practice, so it misses the small talk and shared jokes that make people feel close. Someone who swaps messages all evening with a team from an online club can still have nobody to sit with at break, because loneliness is the feeling of having no one to share things with, not a count of how many conversations you have.

Working alone

Working alone for long periods can be harder than a quiet day. With no colleagues to talk to, an individual has nobody to share a problem with or to notice that they are struggling, which can lead to isolation and depression, a lasting low mood that makes everyday life hard. An apprentice who spends months entering records alone in a spare room, hearing from a manager only by weekly email, may stop feeling part of a team.

Remote working can also increase stress and anxiety for some people. Someone who joins a workplace while the rest of the team works remotely never picks up the team's unwritten rules: who to ask about what, and when to speak up. That uncertainty can build into stress, and over time this can contribute to depression.

Technology lets you find things out for yourself instead of waiting for someone to tell you. That can make you feel more capable, because self-confidence is how sure you feel about your own ability to do something, and it is part of your mental wellbeing. If you look up a step-by-step guide to solving a Rubik's cube and it works, you can repeat it the next day without checking back. Managing it without help makes the next attempt feel far less daunting.

For that boost to happen, the information must be reliable: accurate, up to date and written by someone who actually knows the subject. A method with one step in the wrong order leaves the cube scrambled, and you end up doubting yourself more than before you started.

When going it alone does not help

Not everyone is comfortable working things out alone. Some people only feel sure of themselves after checking a decision with another person, such as a friend, a relative or a workmate. If the only support available is a screen and there is nobody to ask, they can feel unsure and stuck, and their confidence falls rather than grows. Tuning a guitar by ear with only a tuning app is an example: with no friend or teacher to say it sounds right, every small adjustment feels like a guess.

So technology is only a confidence builder when the information can be trusted and the person is happy to work independently. Take away either of those and the same technology can leave someone feeling less sure of themselves.

Modern technology does more than help you get things done: it can change how you feel. Three positive impacts on an individual's mental wellbeing are separating yourself from a stressful environment, feeling in control of your own schedule, and adjusting your schedule to meet your family's needs.

Separating yourself from a stressful environment

A device gives you somewhere else to go without leaving the room. Headphones and a screen can carry you into something that takes all your attention — a photo you are editing for a club competition, or a language app you practise on the bus. Because your mind is busy with the task, it moves away from the argument or the noise around you and the stress eases for a while.

This is a distraction rather than a cure. The stressful situation is still there afterwards, so it helps most as a short break that lets you calm down enough to cope.

Feeling in control of your schedule

Stress often comes from not knowing what is coming. Technology that replaces guesswork with clear facts helps: a live bus app shows that the 07:52 is running eight minutes late, so you know there is still time for breakfast, and a walk-in centre app shows the current wait before you set off. You can see what is happening and when, decide what to do first, and stop carrying it all in your head. Being in charge of your time, instead of being chased by it, is the impact on wellbeing.

Adjusting your schedule to meet family needs

Control also means you can move things. Online booking lets you choose an appointment slot that fits around collecting a younger sister from school or visiting a grandparent in hospital, and a shift-swap app at a weekend job lets you swap a Saturday for a family event. Because you made the adjustment yourself, you feel in charge of your time.

It is not guaranteed, though: technology offers the choice, but a manager can still refuse the swap or the slot can be full.