Physiological and hygienic assessment of the use of gadgets by students living in cities

Abstract

Total computerization of all types of students» activities contributes to the negative impact on the organ of vision. And the use of digital devices in everyday life only exacerbates the widespread myopia. In modern society, visual impairments in children are among the urgent medical and social problems. The purpose of this work is to give a hygienic assessment of the effect of gadgets on the visual functions of schoolchildren and students. To achieve this goal, a sociological study was conducted by means of a group indirect survey. A questionnaire was developed, which included 13 questions. The survey was conducted in an online format. The object of the study were students of different levels of education. Students of grades 5 and 11 of schools in Perm Krai and Bashkortostan (122 people) and 102 students of the 6th year of medical universities in Perm and Ufa were interviewed. Access to the electronic questionnaire on the Google Forms platform was provided after obtaining voluntary consent. Comparison of the studied groups among themselves showed that the number of people with myopia significantly increases with age: from 63.4 to 78.4 % (p = 0.02). At the same time, students are more likely to use glasses on a regular basis (56 %; p = 0.0009). Assessment of the manifestation of «visual» symptoms revealed that with age, students make the main complaints about «image blurring» — 71.6 % (p = 0.03). Popular digital devices among all categories of respondents are a cell phone and a laptop. At the same time, 11th grade students and students use the laptop more often. Younger schoolchildren use them most often for games, high school students and students — for communication with peers and information retrieval. Most of the respondents spend more than two hours a day using gadgets. Medical students and 11th grade students spend more than 4 hours a day on this (p = 0.01).