Many Taiwanese college students use their smartphones up to 30 hours per week, but often believe they only use them for 20 hours, a survey released on Saturday by National Taiwan University Hospital found.
The survey, conducted through an app called “Know Addiction,” found that college students tend to underestimate how much they use smartphones, especially when used for longer periods.
Excessive smartphone use can damage a person’s eyesight, hospital ophthalmologist Yang Chang-hao (楊長豪) said, adding that the blue light emitted by phones poses a greater health risk to younger people, as it can cause the brain to stop producing melatonin, a hormone that cues when to sleep.
Even if young people are exposed to only one-tenth of the blue light absorbed by adults, their brains would secrete less melatonin, he said, adding that more exposure to blue light can hurt the retina and increase the risk of macular degeneration.
People should rest after using phones for 30 to 40 minutes and blink more often to moisturize their eyes, he said.
People should also consume more vitamins that are beneficial to the eyes, such as lutein, zeaxanthin, lycopene and vitamins C and E, Yang said.
To reduce the duration and frequency of phone use, hospital psychiatrist Lin Yu-hsuan (林煜軒) recommended turning off unnecessary notifications and developing a habit of using phones at regular times.
In addition to eyesight problems, using smartphones for extended periods can negatively affect personal safety and could cause neck and shoulder strain, the research team said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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