Already born myopic, teen's eyes get severely deformed after mobile gaming addiction

When your parents tell you that video games will spoil your eyes, you should probably know that science can back up their claims. 

A teen in China had his eyeballs severely deformed thanks to a potent combination of congenital myopia and a serious addiction to mobile games. 

Oriental Daily reported that the 15-year-old boy from Guangdong Province was already born with congenital myopia, an affliction that develops in infants and causes nearsightedness.

Due to the obstruction along the visual pathway, the eye becomes elongated in response, resulting in distance blur. 

Though its effects could have been slowed down early on, the boy’s family mentioned that he was not willing to wear glasses as he was afraid of being teased by his classmates. 

It got to the point where the teen could only read words up to 15cm away from his face. A check-up at the hospital revealed that his eye structure had been severely deformed, elongating his eyeball to 31.5mm — at least 7mm longer than the average. 

Doctors also revealed that myopia in his right eye reached as high as 2,400 degrees while his left eye was only slightly better at 2,300 degrees. For reference, anything beyond 600 degrees is considered high myopia, and it only takes 1,200 degrees to be deemed extreme. 

As bad as it is, at least he’s getting treatment now. Doctors mentioned that he was at risk of a detached retina too due to the deformed shape of his eyeball — it risked displacement through getting hit by something as slight as a ping pong ball. 

The teen is currently undergoing treatment to slow down the rate of his myopia. 

ilyas@asiaone.com