Smartphone On Maximum Brightness Burns 500 Holes In Woman’s Eyes

What’s the first thing you remember to dump in your pocket before you leave your house? Your smartphone. Smartphones have become one of the basic necessities for people who depend on it for almost everything on a day-to-day basis. In fact, according to BankMyCell over 3.5 billion people around the world use smartphones!

Want to order food? Grab your smartphone. Want to read something? Get your smartphone. Want to Netflix and chill? Your smartphone’s at your service. Apart from the basic calling, texting and taking precious selfies, smartphones are used for almost everything from gaming to chilling out during your free time. Well, one woman has literally felt the wrath of smartphones when one burned 500 holes in her eyes.

Meet 25-years-old Taiwanese woman called Chen who works as a secretary in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Like many of us, Chen would often be seen scrolling through her smartphone, either for work or to browse the internet during her free time. Chen’s smartphone played an important role in her life – secretaries working on smartphones would know exactly what it was like for Chen. She had to have her smartphone on her at all times possible so she could attend calls or respond to any messages that were sent to her.

And since she spent a lot of time under the sun, low brightness made it difficult for her to browse her phone so in 2016 she decided to set her smartphone’s brightness to the maximum level. For two long years, she used her smartphone set on maximum brightness. Not a big deal, or is it? As it turns out, Chen was indirectly hurting her eyes by exposing them to intense levels of blue light. By March 2018 her smartphone’s intense blue light exposure caught up with her and Chen started feeling pain in her eyes; pain that got worse as days progressed. A worried Chen immediately bought some eye drops and started using them for another three months.

By July 2018 Chen realized that the eye drops weren’t helping, instead, the pain in her eyes got worse sending her straight to the hospital where she received a horrifying diagnosis. According to the doctors, Chen’s left eye was clogged with blood and her right eye had over 500 holes in her cornea – all because of her smartphone’s maximum brightness. Doctors stated that the recommended amount of lumens (light) a cellphone should emit is 325, but Chen’s smartphone started emitting 625 lumens after she maximized its brightness. Not only did her eyes become bloodshot, but she was also about to lose her vision.

Image: Eric Lafforgue/Art in All of Us/Getty Images

So 620 lumens, how dangerous is it? You’ve seen Chen’s story, but in a nutshell, doctors state that exposing your eyes to 600 lumens for just two hours is like baking them in a microwave. While we’re not sure exactly which phone Chen was using, we do know that she received successful steroid treatments to stop her vision from deteriorating and reverse the effects of her smartphone’s maximum brightness.

What’s the lesson learned? Don’t increase your smartphone’s brightness to the maximum and don’t use your smartphones in the dark, in fact, limit the use of smartphone and go out and have fun instead! Remember, your eyes get tired too so take a break from your smartphone every 20 minutes to avoid eye fatigue.