Cybersecurity scholar Ojo Emmanuel Ademola argues that living well in the digital age depends less on new technology and more on the discipline to use it wisely, in a column urging individuals and institutions to treat digital habits as a matter of long term health.
Ademola, described as the first African professor of cybersecurity and information technology management, wrote that people today are more connected than earlier generations but often less rested, more informed but less discerning, a gap he said only deliberate habits can close. His central argument is that technology should function as a servant rather than a master, and that people who let devices and notifications dictate their behaviour risk disrupted sleep, shortened attention and rising stress.
He pointed to several specific habits he said protect health in a screen heavy environment. On the body, he called for regular movement to offset the effects of prolonged screen use, citing walking meetings, standing workstations and scheduled breaks as ways to counter sedentary routines. On sleep, he argued that removing screens and notifications from the bedroom protects the body’s natural rhythms and supports recovery and mental performance. On mental health, he said the volume of news, opinion and social media people encounter daily can produce anxiety and fatigue unless people deliberately filter what they consume rather than absorb everything available.
Ademola also linked digital habits to relationships and security. He argued that technology should be used to strengthen in person connection rather than substitute for it, citing research linking strong social ties to longer, healthier lives. He treated cybersecurity as part of personal wellbeing rather than a separate technical concern, arguing that protecting personal data and using strong authentication reduces the stress associated with fraud and identity theft.
On healthcare, Ademola pointed to wearable devices, telemedicine and predictive health tools as a growing source of early detection and prevention, while cautioning that the data those tools produce only helps people who act on it. He predicted continued growth in personalised and predictive health technology but argued the basic determinants of a long life, nutrition, exercise, sleep, relationships and stress management, will stay the same regardless of how advanced the tools become.
He closed the column by framing digital wisdom as a daily practice rather than an occasional goal, arguing that individuals, educators, businesses and governments all have a role in promoting healthy technology use alongside continued innovation. Wisdom remains the most important technology of all, he wrote.
