The Internet and Social Media Stand Up to Back Pain

Chronic back pain has been one of the leading problems among physical afflictions developed by humans. Back pain is essentially due to the product of gravity and time. Time and gravity unfortunately compress our spine, which is why older people tend to get shorter as the years pass. These compressed spines lead to herniated and slipped discs. When a disc becomes herniated it slips out of place between the two vertebrae and puts pressure on the sciatic nerve. This nerve is one of the largest and most important nerves in your body. When there is pressure being applied to this nerve it leads to a plethora of debilitating pain. Often times, for instance in my case, the pain becomes so excruciating that surgery needs to be done and the disc that is hurting your sciatic nerve must be removed. Granted, not everyone experiences pain so bad that they need to get surgery. Surgery is often times only necessary because the back experienced over use or some sort of trauma. In my case, my years in the Navy put me through so much that I ended up not only losing one of my discs but also breaking my back. This required a major surgery that was followed by a year of rehab. Luckily, new research on how the spine works over time has led to multiple inventions to help with this vicious cycle. Artificial discs were invented to replace degenerated and slipped discs. The most important invention in my mind is the spine decompressing machine. I have found online that this new invention has proven to help take away the aging on the spine.

It is no secret that technology is taking over the world and with technology comes the popular social mediums such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram that allows you to connect to just about anyone through a click of a button.

With the growth of technology over the years, the internet has become a major factor in even the most upfront jobs that require almost zero means of technological support such as physical therapy. Now although the years have changed technology to fit our comfort levels, our bodies unfortunately bare quite an opposite burden. Time, and gravity of course, slowly wares and tares our bodies, more specifically our spines, until we are reduced (yes a mean physically reduced because time does indeed make us shorter) to a much more feeble state of being. A state of being for some that deals so much pain that surgery is required to alleviate the discomfort. Yet there is still hope to combat the seemingly invincible factor of time through means of this expanding influence of technology. Physical Therapists, who help with these spine related problems, have found that social media along with other technological advancements could indeed be the key needed to fight back against back pain. Kala, a physical therapist at the University of Maryland explains how social media along with new methods and equipment help make her job easier.

Social media is no longer just a place for people to connect and talk about nonsense.

These mediums are finding themselves in the work force of the world as well. When looking for people to hire many companies will make sure to check out a would-be recruit’s Facebook page to make sure they are not hiring someone who will not take their job seriously. That is only a small role that Social Networking places in everyday jobs. As mentioned by Kala, Twitter and Facebook have become prevalent factors in researching different therapy methods and even scheduling Sports Training meetings with other organizations across the country. She mentions how Maryland Sports Medicine has their own Facebook page where people can post new found ideas or methods that may be useful for aspiring physical therapists or even professionals. When looking for new methods to ease back pain, any help from outside sources is gold to a therapist. Much like technology, nothing in the physical therapy field is set in stone. New methods and new technologies are being fostered every day which will ultimately lead to human self-improvement.

It is not just social media that provides useful information to help improve and field of work.

The internet in general can be used for anything. For example, someone who has become a victim of a back injury and is looking for any way to help battle the pain that comes along with the injury. All he or she would need to do is type in Google, “new advancements in physical therapy” and a website would pop up illustrating the much new advancement in research that could help the way you go about treating yourself. For instance, through that exact search one could find a website that introduces a new machine that helps decompress a spine.

Time and gravity both work together to compress the human spine which could potentially leave herniated or slipped discs.

For athletes or the unfortunate, a direct impact can hyper-extend a back to the point where it breaks. If not treated properly, a broken back along with herniated discs leads to a plethora of nerve pain that requires a major surgery which could ultimately leave you in a life changing dilemma. These new machines that can decompress your back are evolutionary because they can help prevent these discs from degenerating and slipping out. The primary problem with these discs slipping out is the effect they have on the Sciatic Nerve. This nerve when compressed, deals a significant level of discomfort that can render even the strongest of people helpless. The fact that a simple search on Google can lead a desperate person who is experiencing pain into the path of one of these machines is lifesaving.

At the end of the day, the internet’s supply of social media and search engines enables people to delve into easier methods of reducing pain on the body. Back pain is arguably one of the worst and most uncomfortable feelings people have to go through. It can leave you completely helpless and unable to move. A person who experiences said pain on a daily basis does not want to have to sit waiting rooms all day just to hear the same stuff from the same doctor. No one has time for that nonsensical waste of time. The internet provides that faster more reliable path to relief which is essential when the only thing holding you back, is your back.

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Social Media and Journalism Impact Sports on Different Levels

With the ever expanding world of social networking, no thanks to Facebook and twitter, celebrities have been able to reach out to fans themselves without the help from news broadcasters. This seems to especially be the case with athletes. 

After big wins or loses athletes such as LeBron James can pick up their smart phone and tweet about the game. Not only can they tweet about how many points they put up in their game but they can also delve into their social life and let fans really know about what they do off the big stage. In my own personal view on the situation, I think this new ability to reach out to fans on a more personal level has both negative and positive values. Beginning with the positive aspects, those of us who are really die-hard fans and in some cases a little too passionate about the players, have access to more personal information. To normal sports fans just trying to check out the score of a game you can just pull out your phone and hope that you favorite player has tweeted about the outcome.  This of course prevents you from having to find a television let alone a television with the right channel still talking about the event.

However here are some downfalls to this media shift. With this new access into the lives of people we so admire and depict as heroes, a sense of immortality that is often born at a celebrity status is lost. Being able to see what they are up to or even what they are eating can bring them down from their high horse and into the shoes of us “muggles”, so to speak. Another problem in my eyes associated with athlete social media is the fact that it decreases the popularity of sports broadcasters which could in turn affect ones job. Very much like the decrease in the popularity of sitting back and watching the news on a television, people no longer need the person inside the tube telling us the latest news. We are now just a couple swipes on a touch screen away from finding out all we need to know about the subject matter. Lastly, in my eyes and what I think everyone would agree to be a major problem is some of the more personal posts these heroes unfortunately leave on twitter. How many times have celebrities accidently posted a tweet or a Facebook status insulting another player or coach? Then due to audience feedback and negative publicity, that offender must then apologize due to peer and fan pressure. This wrong doing behavior once again diminishes that celebrity immortality and brings them down the popularity totem pole of the fans.

So what are some things that journalism brings to the table that social media does not, and vice versa? One of the major differences between a face to face interview and a social media exploit is the amount of detail. While twitter limits you to a certain amount of characters, a journalist can actually sit down with the athlete and ask detailed questions that one would not be able to find on twitter. Many of these questions asked are fan generated which at the end of the day helps you out more than your smartphone ever could. This of course doesn’t mean that the interview will not be accessible through your mobile device afterwards but that is neither here nor there. So what does twitter bring to the table? Well for one it is random and generally more about what is on the players mind not what is on the journalists mind. This idea can breed a more personal understanding for the fans of a player. So where is the even ground? It is no secret that tweets are often used as resources by sports broadcasters to highlight important events in the life of the athletes.

Often times tweets can really bring out the funny or in some cases inappropriate side of professional athletes, a trait that is rarely found in a more direct interview. For instance that controversial call made by the refs in a big NFL game last year between the Seahawks and the packers led to some angry tweets that would not be found on an interview. One offensive lineman in particular really went overboard with the social media outrage. Not only did he insult the professionalism of the replacement refs, but he also came at the neck of the NFL itself and the integrity of the Seattle Seahawks. Social media and journalism do indeed have their differences but in the long run I believe they will work hand in hand which will only benefit the enjoyment of the fans.  

Michael Hart invents the e-book

Michael Hart was a very innovative tinkerer who was born March 8, 1947 in Tacoma Washington. Hart was a could be seen as a renaissance man, he was an Eagle scout and a war veteran. His mother and father were both very bright people one being an accountant and the other a business manager. I think the most interesting aspect of his parents was the fact that his mother was a crypt-analyst during the 2nd world war. For those of us who do not know exactly what that is it is a person who deciphers codes and hidden messages. During the world wars cracking codes played a huge roll on changing the tide of the war. Growing up Hart was exposed to very smart people more particularly his parents who were very mathematically well rounded. Attending the University of Illinois it only took Hart two years to graduate so you can just imagine how smart and successful he was.

At the University of Illinois Hart was granted unlimited access to a computer which had a huge impact on his future. Now mind you back in 1971 there was much more time for people to use computers than there were people to use them. In simpler terms computers just were not very popular and alien to most people. Hart instead of learning about the computer or doing normal things decided to just start copying down text into the systems memory. His first text that he copied down was actually the declaration of independence. His whole idea behind transcribing all of these documents was to make them open and accessible to the public. The works of Shakespeare and even the Bible could be found among his downloads. The machines at the time were connected to ARPAnet which at the time was pretty much a form of security for the military when they communicated with computers. ARPAnet, which in fact decades later would eventually become the internet, served as an access point for people who wanted to view these many texts that Hart typed down.

When Hart was given the time to work on these computers, that was when Project Gutenberg was born. For almost twenty years Hart copied texts onto what would soon be known as an e-book. Through means of computer programmers and many other helpers Hart was able to create an idea that would eventually produce over one hundred million dollars for him. Hart would find it funny that he produced so much out of just typing words down into a machines memory system. Through the means of discs and hard drives, Harts dream of creating a huge data base of texts would come true.

Many who knew him would come to say that Hart was a very odd creature, or very unreasonable. He would do whatever it took to keep his project up and running. Since he did not own a car for a very long time Hart could be seen shipping all of his computers around in a cart that was attached to his bike. He was constantly asking people to borrow equipment, or even their physical help with whatever he was trying to get done. Recruiting people to join his e-book army was definitely a big factor in Project Gutenberg's success. His relentlessness in finding help added to his unreasonable nature. Another odd thing about him was that whenever he got sick, instead of just going to the doctor he would make home remedies to help. Through Harts brilliance and weirdness he was able to assemble computers through scraps of random equipment that was discarded by other users. Harts favorite quote, "Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people." Although being very bizarre and as mention "unreasonable" was in his nature, his oddities would help shape the internet to become what it is today.