Video games are horrible. Well, of course, they are fun. However, if you get addicted, they will suck the life out of you while rendering you useless for pretty much everything else in life. That might be a bit exaggerated but not anymore. Meet this Chinese woman who went completely blind in one eye, all thanks to a video game addiction.
Wu is a 21-year-old woman from Dongguan, China, who was diagnosed with retinal artery obstruction in her right eye after playing the King of Glory on her smartphone non-stop. Wu only noticed that she could not see with her right eye on 1st October, and went to bed thinking that she was just tired. She realized that she had gone blind in the right eye after waking up the next morning. She was taken to the hospital immediately where the doctors diagnosed the problem.
Wu was diagnosed with retinal artery obstruction, a condition that mostly occurs in older patients. In her case, it was caused due to the constant stress of staring at the screen of her smartphone. The woman also admitted her fault and said that she spent far more time on her phone than she should have. Since she works in finance, her work involves staring at the computer screen all day long. Once she gets home, she plays the game on her smartphone non-stop for seven to eight hours. If that is not enough, she spends her entire weekends playing the game on her phone apart from a few hours of sleep.
She talks about her daily routine,
“During my days off, I would wake up at 6 am, eat breakfast and start playing until around 4 pm. I would stop and eat something before taking a short nap and continue playing until 1 am or 2 am. Sometimes, I would even be too lazy to stop and eat.”
The woman did not even bother going out with friends during China’s Golden Week holiday and stayed home for a King of Glory marathon. The continuous stress eventually damaged her eye to a level where doctors are desperately trying to restore her vision, but to no avail!
After the incident, ophthalmologists have begun to stress more on the importance of limiting the computer and smartphone usage and taking breaks after every 30 minutes. Looking after frequent intervals allows the muscles to relax and relieve the stress that otherwise may cause serious damage.
We all love our smartphones and games but what happened to Wu is a reason good enough to start giving ourselves a break.