Heavy Smartphone Usage Could Cause Children To Go Cross-Eyed

There are various superstitious beliefs around the world, like how you shouldn’t walk under a ladder, or how you should not wear black during Chinese New Year, or how if you point at the moon, your ear will get cut, and etc. But have you heard about how heavy smartphone usage amongst children could potentially result in them going cross-eyed?

Now it sounds like this could be some made-up tale to get children to stop playing with their phones all the time, but this is actually based on a study that doctors at the Chonnam National University Hospital in Seoul, South Korea have discovered. Apparently what happens is that  too much smartphone usage could cause convergent strabismus.

For those unfamiliar, this a condition that sees a patient’s eyes gradually moving inwards until the person is eventually cross-eyed. Doctors based their findings on a study involving 12 children aged 7-16 and who used mobile phones between 4-8 hours on a daily basis. They also found that there is correlation between how close these children how their phones to their faces.

Now a study involving just 12 children out of the millions in the world can hardly be considered conclusive, but these doctors aren’t alone in their concern. Samsung has recently released an app that will warn kids if their faces are too close to the phone, suggesting that there might be some kind of link here.

In any case we suppose too much smartphone use has other detrimental effects, like being less sociable, or affecting their studies, and so on, but we guess this could be another excuse you could use to try and convince your kid to put down the phone and go out and play.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones, Medical
Tags: Health