North Dakota top health official calls digital device use 'largest public health threat'

BISMARCK — North Dakota’s interim health chief is making a yearlong push against what he calls the state’s most urgent public health threat — the constant pull of cellphones and other digital devices.

In a training for leaders in Health and Human Services, Pat Traynor on Thursday detailed the health “crisis” facing the state and country from constant distraction by phones and other electronic devices.

“Our use of technology and devices is probably the largest public health threat that we have out there,” Traynor said. “We have a lot of health threats. You know, we have chronic disease, we have cancer, we have, you know, all sorts of other problems. But I think digital device use is perhaps the greatest challenge facing us all, because we are, as a society, completely dependent on these t