For my paper, I would like to discuss how technology, especially communication technology, help people to improve their health. Health can be referred to both mental health and physical health. Although there might be some negative aspects of technology, overall, I believe the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

For physical health, health-related apps in smartphone and smartwatch help people track their health and send early warning of the health problems. By technology, people can shift from “sickcare” to healthcare; patients are becoming more involved in the diagnosis and treatment. Internet hospital also provides benefits and convenience for patients. Big data in healthcare help to deliver information that is evidence-based and largely increase efficiencies and help understanding of the best practices associated with any disease, injury or illness. For COVID-19, technology was used to support people with various needs, health complaints as well as maintaining a community mindset and ethos (Marston et al, 2020).

For mental health, there are some apps have stand-alone programs that promise to improve memory or thinking skills, and others help the user connect to a peer counselor or to a health care professional (Technology and the Future of Mental Health Treatment, n.d.). The mobile care would have a few of advantages such as convenience, anonymity, and lower cost. For autism people, especially kids with autism, they can benefit from some science-based video games to improve their abilities. Social media in some cases also can help people recover from depression.

Moving to the negative sides, for the youth, they are more likely affected by the content online. Some inappropriate information may lead to negative effects, such as the willingness associated with e-cigarette. Disadvantages also can be privacy and regulation. To add on, the technology advancements in healthcare may widen the gap of existent healthcare disparities in the society, such as the gap between rich people and poor people, and the gap between young people and elderly people.

Overall, the negative aspects of technology can be controlled by more intervene from government, officials, technicians, and even parents. The advancement of technology and communication technology provide benefits and convenience to everyone in general. As artificial intelligence continuously to improve, I strongly believe that we all would have a more humanized and excellent health system in the future.