These days, lots of people, especially those of the younger generations, are likely to fall asleep while watching something on their smartphones in a dark environment before going to bed. This habit not only upsets the balance of the body, but also harms the eyes, and can negatively affect your health. There will be quite a few students at Kyonggi University who also have this sleeping habit. For them, the Pharos would like to introduce a simple exercise that allows them to find out how unhealthy their use of smartphones in bed can be and helps them correct this problematic behavior.

Let's find out how seriously this bad habit, using a smartphone in a dark environment, can affect your health. When this behavior becomes a habit, it will have an extremely negative effect on the eyes. First of all, the blue light from smartphones can deform the retina. A study from the U.S. showed that the hypothalamic cells of the retina, which did not respond to other lights, such as infrared light and UV rays, were modified and destroyed only in blue light. Blue light has a shorter wavelength than some other colors, which increases the frequency of the vibrations and the amount of energy used. These conditions have a considerable affect on the cells of the retina. Blue light usually comes from monitors, smartphones, and TVs to provide clarity in the display area. When blue light comes into the eyes, it changes the cells by increasing the amount of active oxygen. Deformed eye cells soon cause eye cancer, which recently has led to the loss of life as well as blindness.

Blue light not only deforms the retina, but also causes cataracts and macular degeneration. A cataract is a disease that causes the lens to become blurred and causes things to look foggy. Also, macular degeneration is a vision disorder that causes the blue light to mutate in the macula. The macula is located in the center of the retina of the eye, and plays a very important role in vision, including the formation of images of visual cells. So far, we have learned that blue light alters the cells of the lens, causing eye disorder, and that it is especially harmful when people are exposed to display screens for long periods of time in dark areas. Therefore, this is why we shouldn't use our smartphones for a long time with the lights off just before we go to bed.

For those who have been suffering from the prolonged use of their smartphones in the dark, the Pharos would like to briefly talk about how to relieve eye strain. The first way is to put a warm towel on the eye to relieve eye strain. This keeps the important part of the eye warm, and prevents musculus ciliaris around the eye. Next is rolling the eyes, which is commonly known. Rotating the pupil from top to bottom, from left to right, and diagonally releases the strain of the eye caused by concentrating your vision on something. Finally, you should intentionally cause the eyes to blink. When you concentrate your sight on something, the tear film quickly dries up, which causes many eye diseases. Thus, it is important to blink often to prevent this.

                                                                               70th Reporter Choi SoYeon