hello ladies and gentlemen have you ever

felt

slightly dizzy or sick after

spending a little bit too long in front

of a computer screen

well if you have this might mean that

you have suffered from a new phenomenon

that has become known as cyber sickness

and i want to talk to you a little bit

about what cyber sickness is

why it occurs and offer you some

solutions in case you ever suffer from

it

so as you may have inferred cyber

sickness is a sense of wooziness

light headiness headedness or nausea

that comes from prolonged use of digital

technologies

and these technologies are particularly

virtual reality fast-paced video games

or films

but even rapid scrolling on your

telephone on your smartphone

on your tablet or on your computer

now the symptoms of cyber sickness are

usually

very mild so as i said slight feeling of

sickness or

or dizziness but cyber sickness at its

more
extreme end can in fact bring about

extreme headaches and a sense of

confusion

i'd like to go very briefly into the

science behind

cyber sickness many of you may well

suffer also from

car sickness or to be more technical

motion sickness and this is when you get

in a car

or on a boat and you start to feel a bit

dizzy or a bit sick

now the reason behind this the technical

reason behind this

is that when you're in a car you don't

[Music]

visually perceive the movement but your

body feels it and this creates

an imbalance in your inner ear an

imbalance between the different senses

when you're playing a virtual reality

game or when you're scrolling on your

telephone

you see the movement with your eyes but

you don't actually feel it so again you

have

the opposite form of imbalance in your

inner ear

and this causes this sense of queasiness

or dizziness

so now that you understand what cyber

sickness is i'd like to offer you some

solutions in case you ever

suffer from it first of all after this

extended use at the computer if you find

yourself

feeling a bit dizzy you should sit down

at perhaps in front of a table at a

flat and stable surface put your hands

flat on the table

and then focus at a point in the

distance a still point

or on the horizon and this serves to

recalibrate your senses so it tells your

eyes that you're not moving while your

body also feels this

sense of stability and the lack of

movement

however more importantly i would say

that if you find that you suffer from

cyber sickness frequently

you might want to think about reducing

the amount of time you spend staring at

the screen

thank you