According to the latest reports and research, more than a third of the human population owns a smartphone and, in average, look at it an astonishing 150 times a day. And now, people are starting to enquire what this is doing to their health. Some mention that the average handset has more germs than a toilet, leaning over to use your smartphone can lead to a squashed spine, mobile phone can give you trouble sleeping, poor hearing and saggy jowls, the list has quite a few items. In this article, we gathered reports and articles from papers and magazines worldwide that reveal how our favorite gadget can damage our bodies.
Let’s start with the most common result of using your smartphone excessively, ruining your eyes. Focusing on a small object for a long time can cause dry eyes, which can lead to inflammation and infection, and there’s also research to suggest that using smartphones could leave us needing glasses sooner. While smartphones aren’t necessarily damaging our eyes, they are demanding more of them. Other than that, screen time has already been linked to a number of health problems in children: vision, obesity and heart problems. The solution to this problem could be to enlarge the size of the text on your phone, and to avoid glare, try to use your phone in a well-lit room and don’t use it for more than 15 minutes at a time.
Our smartphones are changing our posture. Far more people experience pain in their neck or shoulders because they poke their heads forward when they are reading something on a phone or tablet. This position squashes the top of the spine and compresses the nerves that go up to the head. Try exercises to lengthen your neck muscles, such as imagining a string pulling you up from the middle of your head to help you improve your posture. Also, keep your posture at all times, not only while using your smartphone. Not many know that excessive phone use could also change the definition of your jawline because of bending your neck forward for hours on end to look at smartphones and tablets may mean there is more of a downwards tug on the delicate skin. This is exactly why you should hold your phone or tablet straight out in front of you, rather than below chest level, so you’re not constantly looking downwards.
We all know how hot phone screens can get after a long call or excessive usage. That’s why some experts are concerned they can give you pimples or sweat rash. Which? magazine carried out tests on a sample of 30 mobile phones and discovered that, on average, a handset had 18 times more harmful germs on it than the flush handle in a men’s lavatory. So, if you are prone to spots, use a hands-free kit and wipe your phone with a saline solution.
Playing music through headphones too loud can cause noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL), which can make it difficult to hear speech, especially when there’s background noise,’ says Karen Finch, of the Hearing Care Centre in Ipswich. Playing music through headphones too loud can cause noise-induced hearing loss. Many standard-issue headphones don’t fit the ear properly which results in a leakage of sound. This is why people often feel they have to turn the volume up. Try keeping sound levels on your smartphones as low as you can and don’t listen to it for too long in order to avoid the aforementioned situations.
Computers, laptops, tablets and phones tend to give off a blue light, which is thought to interfere with the natural hormones, such as melatonin, which help us sleep. If you can’t leave your phone outside your bedroom at night, try dimming the brightness settings on your phone and hold it at least 14 inches from your face while using it. That will reduce its potential to impede sleep.
And last, but not least, mobile phones are capable of ruining our relationships. One might think our phones facilitate communication, but studies suggest otherwise. Phones make it hard to manage boundaries in our lives, because when you’re using your phone, you don’t give your full attention to those you’re physically with. The more engaged we are in social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, the more lonely we can become as family, friends and work relationships suffer. Try creating a strict rule that there are no phones at the dinner table or when you’re out socially, it might prove to be a relationship-saver.
We hope that you are going to change some of your habits of using your smartphone and/or tablet after reading about all the damaging consequences it can have on your life and health. We know we will. If you know of any other important issues or how a mobile phone could affect our health, feel free to comment and share it with us.