Smartphone Health Effects

[Anchor Lead]

The number of smartphone users has topped 50 million in Korea alone, meaning every person possesses one smartphone. Although the use of smartphones have brought in many benefits, the excessive use of the device can cause some health problems, including turtle neck syndrome and sleep disorder. It has been proven for the first time through an empirical study that smartphones have direct negative effects on the eyes in raising intraocular pressure.

[Pkg]

This is an office worker in his 20s with healthy eyes. His intraocular pressure was measured. It is 17.6 on average. His eye pressure was measured again after using a smartphone for 15 minutes to type. The eye pressure has risen 12.5 percent to 19.8. A medical team at Seoul National University Hospital conducted a study on 39 people in their 20s and 30s to find the correlation between smartphone use and changes in eye pressure. In bright areas, intraocular pressure begins to rise five minutes after using smartphones. It increases 13 percent in 15 minutes and then returns to a normal level when they stopped using smartphones. Eye pressure changes more severely in darkness. It rises 25 percent after a 15-minute use. And then plunges after five minutes off the phone. When using smartphones, people inevitably bend their heads. When this posture is maintained for a prolonged time, blood flows down to the eyeball, raising intraocular pressure. In particular, pupils widen in darkness in order to absorb as much light as possible. At this time, channels through which ocular fluids flow out narrow down and raise eye pressure.

[Soundbite] Prof. Kim Young-kook(Ophthalmologist, SNU Hospital) : "Using smartphones is different from reading books. Smartphone screens emit light and can be seen in a dark place. These factors are believed to cause clear changes in eye pressure."

To discourage a rise in eye pressure, people are advised to use smartphones in bright places and give their eyes a rest after ten-minutes. This is the first time the alleged correlation between smartphone use and higher eye pressure among healthy adults has been proven clinically.