smartphones

mobile phones

JJ Hospital

Sarva Sikshan Abhiyan

Dr T P Lahane

Ophthalmology

Colaba

Survey, which covered over 1500 schools in the island city, says kids as young as one are being exposed toOne in every ten children in the age group of 5 to 12 in Mumbai has a compromised long-distance vision caused mainly by exposure to mobile phones.A survey carried out byand the state’s Health Department, which covered 7.5 lakh students across public and private schools from south Mumbai to Sion, found 91,000 kids suffering from myopia. Their parents were not aware of the problem despite the kids being in urgent need of powered glasses to prevent further deterioration of eyesight.The survey, carried out under the Union government-sponsored, found that 71,000 of the children with defective eye-sight were exposed to mobile phones very early in their lives, some of them when they were just one. Since children’s eyes develop up to age of six, exposure to harsh glare of mobile phones at a young age can cause permanent damage, as it did in the case of these kids., JJ dean and a renowned ophthalmologist, said some of the kids surveyed spent six to eight hours on mobile phones every day. “Some parents said their child began playing with phones when he was just a year old. Mobile phones have become new toys and this is extremely dangerous. There is a grave need to create awareness about the ill-effects of mobile phone usage at a young age,” he said.The survey report has been submitted to the state government to help it design comprehensive guidelines for parents and teachers.Dr Ragini Parekh, head,Department, JJ Hospital, said mobile phones are worse than computers as far as stress on eyes was concerned. “Some parents told us that the only way to calm their child when he or she threw a tantrum was to handover the mobile phone,” she said.Dr Parekh said that while humans blink fifteen times in a minute, this goes down by nearly half when staring at a phone, leading to excessive dryness of eyes. She added that sustained exposure to mobile phones for three years can cause irreversible damage.Dr Keiki Mehta, senior ophthalmologist, who runs an eye clinic in, said he is getting more and more cases of children as young as six or seven suffering from myopia and there is no doubt it is because of exposure to mobile phones. “I instruct parents to not let their children play with smartphones. Most of the time, parents are unaware of their children’s eyesight problems,” he said.