Yoon Ja-young is in charge of articles translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times. She is interested in improving the newspaper through AI.
Smartphones can make you look older
Smartphones have become daily necessity, but using them too much in bad posture may negatively affect how you look.
By Yoon Ja-young
By Yoon Ja-young
The National Institute of the Korean Language announced newly coined words of 2012 last month, which will be registered in the online Korean dictionary. Among them was “smartphone old face,” which refers to the symptom in which people look older than their actual age due to saggy jowls as a result of looking down the smartphone screens for a long time.
Dr. Seo Il-beom, a plastic surgeon at the Grand Plastic Surgery, said that people might end up having saggy jowls when they lower their head for a long time to look at the smartphone screen and that creases can also form around the lips. Once formed, they make people look grumpy and older.
“You can lift the face through surgery which includes incising from the front of the ear to scalp, or treat the crease and saggy cheeks through surgery using special thread and needle, but it is more important to prevent them through correct daily life,” the doctor said.
He picked maintaining correct posture as the first step. People should try to decrease using smartphones with their head bent. After using smarpthones for 10 or 20 minutes, one should take a rest after lifting the head up. “If you use a smartphone in the office, a smartphone holder may help you maintain good posture,” Seo said.
To prevent saggy cheeks and creases, it is important to enhance the elasticity of muscles around the face. Seo said that facial stretching may help. It aims at exercising facial muscles that are not used much ordinarily. Saying “A, E, I, O, U” while exaggerating the movement of the mouth and the facial muscles or swelling cheeks can help blood circulation and activate muscles, helping the prevention of facial creases, according to Seo.
Using smartphones with such bad posture for a long time is bad for the eyes as well. Doctors recommend maintaining at least a 30-centimeter distance between the eyes and the screen, and looking far away when taking a rest to lessen the stress on the eyes. Closing and opening the eyes while moving the eyeballs up and down and left and right is also helpful, the doctor said.