Long hours on smartphones may affect eyesight

A woman in China, who spent many hours peering at her smartphone in the dark, found that her right retina had become detached.

Liu felt her right eye had been "veiled" since last week. Liu habitually plays with her smartphone for two to three hours each day in the dark, Xinhua reported Saturday.

"When the doctor covered my left eye, everything I saw with my right was distorted. Rectangular objects become elliptical," she said.

The doctor who treated Liu said she suffered a partial retina detachment and blamed using her smartphone in the dark for the trouble.

Zhao Bingkun, an ophthalmologist in Zhejiang province, said long hours staring at bright screen in the dark can cause the ciliary muscle to overcontract, affecting its ability to accommodate the changes in the lens when viewing objects at varying distances.

Retina detachment can lead to blindness, and ophthalmologists are seeing a growing number of patients suffering from the condition after staring at the screens of computers and handsets for too long.

A man in China's Fujian province, who spent 10 hours each day running a shop at online marketplace Taobao.com, lost vision in his right eye in November last year.

In a country increasingly obsessed with staying wired, health professionals have long called for self-restraint and proper protection by smartphone and tablet users.