Excessive screen time made Hyderabad woman go blind, here’s how she got her sight back

Every addiction, even seemingly innocuous ones like social media browsing, can wreak havoc on our health.

A Hyderabad-based woman's nocturnal habit of staying up late, web browsing, has cost her, her eyesight. Through a series of tweets, a Hyderabad doctor has explained how excessive use of smartphones has caused one of his patients to go blind. Dr. Sudhir Kumar explained that the woman, Manju, began experiencing symptoms like seeing bright flashes of light, dark zig-zag lines, and an inability to see anything at times. When she went for an eye-health checkup, she was told to rule out neurological causes.
However, when she consulted Dr. Kumar, he reviewed her history and found that she had developed an addiction to social media browsing after quitting a job as a beautician. The woman admitted to browsing her smartphone “several hours daily, including two hours at night with lights switched off.”


The results? “She was suffering from smartphone vision syndrome (SVS),” stated the doctor. Excessive use of gadgets such as computers, smartphones, or tablets can cause various eye-related disabilities such as the SVS, explained the doctor.

The doctor then went on to say that he did not prescribe any medicines for Manju but suggested she minimise the use of smartphones. Manju who was anxious to get better promised to go a step further. “instead of minimizing, I will stop looking at my smartphone screen, unless absolutely necessary. In any case, my phone use is recreational,” he revealed.

For a month Manju refrained from seeking refuge in her smartphone. And this made all the difference in the world. Her eyesight was back with a bang, and she stopped seeing flashes of light during the night.

The doctor also suggested some ways to lower the risk of SVS and other vision-related problems.

• Avoid incessant use of digital devices.
• Take a 20-second break, every 20 minutes to look at something 20 feet away while using a gadget. The doctors refer to this as the “20-20-20 rule.”