Many Geeks' Achilles Heel: They Don't Take Computer Breaks
This can - and sometimes does - lead to chronic - and sometimes fatal - health problems
A person's lifetime is always finite, however it is not a constant. Variable lifespans (and "quality" of such "spans"; being a vegetable or with Alzheimer's disease doesn't quite count as "living" per se, based on criteria of contribution) depend on many factors. They don't depend on choices one makes towards the "end of life", e.g. replacing bad organs or trying to repair them. In general, lifespans depend on this thing some people call "lifestyle" (distorted as a marketing term), alluding to choices one makes about diet, sleep, stress reduction etc. It's basically a process and there's still a lot of ongoing research about computer breaks, standing desks and so on. Those are relatively new things because throughout most of human history there were no computers and in the early days of computers there was no "Internet connection"; 24/7 Internet connections became a "thing" just over 2 decades ago (remember dial-up?) and "addictive" games typically involve multi-player capabilities over the network (real people), so gamers were more vulnerable to addiction in the past 20 years. While it's not fully understood yet what leads to Alzheimer's disease or how to consistently prevent it, few would associate it with computer activities. Long hours of sitting typically take their toll on the limbs and the cardiovascular system; sleep deprivation (brain impacted a lot) is another matter and overworking isn't limited to tech jobs; some parents just don't have enough time in the day, so they simply do not sleep enough. As Ryan has just put it: "I've heard some variation on "There just aren't enough hours in the day." from every parent and complaints of needing more sleep and then never getting it. A guy I used to work with was always half out of it all night long. I felt sorry for him so I always made a big pot of fresh coffee before the meeting and handed him some. He had an infant at home that was keeping him up all day, then he had to work all night. Lack of sleep screws up everything. It jacks up your blood pressure. It makes you more likely to have a heart attack or a stroke. Get gray hairs. He was only in his 20s and after his child was born he actually started going gray. I'm over 40 and I don't have any gray."
Two years ago I recognised an Achilles heel and started experimenting with a 'standing desk'. I put together some dumbbells and took many computer breaks to do exercise. Instead of "wasting time", in my experience I found that it improved my productivity. Having also quit all social control media, I found myself capable of producing more articles and better articles. Professor Eben Moglen spoke about how skinnerboxes and social control media make it hard to concentrate, constantly distract, and generally "metabolise" humans. It's not meant to help people 'consume' accurate information efficiently but to irritate or gratify people based on perceived righteousness and a false sense of "popularity" (like attaining a high score in some computer game 99% of the population does not care about, never played, and probably never even heard about). Having mentioned the pursuit of topics, consider that good coders (or writers) can code a lot, but greater coders (or writers) can handle many different domains of computing (or genres/topics), for example leave aside network stack code and then do some Web stuff (very different things).
The gamers analogy seems apt because of greater public awareness of gamers dying, usually very suddenly after a lack of sleep. Many become obese or unable to socialise - two factors that are mutually connected or intertwined.
Geeks like to measure their progress using all sorts of metrics that resemble what kills gamers (sometimes literally). In Microsoft's GitHub, for example, they conflate "commits" with accomplishment (no matter the size or complexity of a commit). Suffice to say, those cannot be measured in size, either; that's because some of the best commits involve removing code (or compressing, optimising, refactoring) code, not adding more of it.
I live with and near geeks. I see geeks all the time. Many aren't in good health and some suffer all sorts of illnesses that interfere with their ability to work or prevent them doing some tasks. Upper Limb Disorder (ULD) is one example of many. Instead of buying fancy and weird keyboards for repetitive strain injury (RSI), they should instead have focused on prevention.
Don't work fast. Work smart. Sometimes don't work. Take a break. Life can get longer if you stay healthy. █