(Image: Bernhard Lang/Getty)
Text neck, , iPad hand 鈥� the list of screen-related ailments is growing. Add in claims the internet is rewiring our brains, and the 4 or 5 hours a day we spend poking at phones and tablets starts to look like a health risk.
Most of these problems have a quick fix, though. Let鈥檚 take the physical injuries. Text neck 鈥� looking down at a screen in your hands 鈥� puts . Surgeon Kenneth Hansraj at claims that dropping the chin by 60 degrees is . And long periods spent jabbing and swiping or holding a tablet in an awkward grip can lead to stress injuries in the hands and thumbs. The compulsive playing of video games , meaning you could be damaging yourself without realising it. So keep your chin up and take regular breaks, regardless of how you feel at the time.
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There are more subtle problems, too. Screens are strong emitters of blue light, which inhibits the production of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin (see diagram). So using them in the evening can shift our circadian rhythms out of whack, and even cause insomnia. In one study, and her colleagues at Harvard Medical School got volunteers to read from either an iPad or a book for four hours before bedtime over two weeks. When reading from the iPad, melatonin secretion was delayed by an hour and a half. The volunteers also felt more tired the next day compared with when they read books, and spent less time in REM sleep, which is thought to help us consolidate memories. The easiest fix is to switch off a few hours before bed, or use e-readers that don鈥檛 emit blue light. If you must doze off to your favourite box set, reduce the brightness of your screen via your device鈥檚 settings or a screen dimming app.
Screen time also tends to mean being inactive. In a study of 4512 people in the UK, at the University of Sydney, Australia, and colleagues found that those who spent more than 2 hours a day in front of a screen were more than regardless of other common risk factors such as smoking, being overweight and social class. So try not to make screen time an additional reason to laze about.
And the impact on our brains? at University College London has reviewed studies to date and found no evidence that internet use has an impact on cognitive development. 鈥淥ur brain is always changing: that鈥檚 how it works,鈥� says Mills. 鈥淚f all of a sudden you had to adapt to not having the internet, you would be fine.鈥�
Read more: 鈥�Guilty pleasures: Which bad habits can you get away with?鈥�
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淕etting away with screen time鈥�
