Skip to main content * * [cnn]Technology * ┌───────┬──────┬────────────┬──────┬───────────┬──────────┬─────────────┬──────────┬───────────┐ │ CNN │ CNN │[Languages ]│On CNN│Transcripts│ Headline │ CNN │ About │Preferences│ │Europe │ Asia │ │ TV │ │ News │International│ CNN.com │ │ └───────┴──────┴────────────┴──────┴───────────┴──────────┴─────────────┴──────────┴───────────┘ * * SEARCH CNN.COM: * Too much screen time can make you sick [advertisement] [ ] [GO] [1] * [story] Home Page * [1] World ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ U.S. Story Tools * Weather Business at ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ * CNN/Money Sports at NEW YORK (Reuters) -- The more time an office worker toils in * SI.com front of a computer, the more likely he or she is to suffer a Click Here Politics host of physical, mental and sleep-related ills, Japanese Law researchers report. Technology Science & While video display terminal (VDT) use has become commonplace in Space many types of jobs, there is little information on how long a Health person can safely use a computer each day. To investigate, Dr. Entertainment Tetsuya Nakazawa of Chiba University and colleagues surveyed Travel over 25,000 office workers who responded to three questionnaires Education between 1995 and 1997. Special Reports Participants answered questions about the amount of time they Click Here spent in front of a VDT, their sleep habits, and physical and SERVICES mental ailments including headache, low back pain, eyestrain, Video depression and anxiety. Their findings are published in the Newswatch October issue of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. E-Mail Services "In our study, we found a significant relationship between CNN To Go duration of daily VDT use and physical symptoms," even after SEARCH CNN.COM: adjusting for other factors that could influence the results, the authors write. [ ] [GO] 'Reluctance to go to work' Office workers stuck in front of a computer most commonly complained of headache, eyestrain, joint pain and stiff shoulders. Mental symptoms such as lethargy, anxiety and "reluctance to go to work," as well as sleep-related problems including insomnia and fatigue, were most common among workers who spent more than 5 hours a day glued to their computer screen. "This result suggested that the effect of duration of daily VDT use on these scores has a threshold effect, and the prevention of mental disorder and sleep disorder requires the restriction of VDT use to less than 5 hours per day," the researchers write. While the type of computer work the study participants performed varied considerably, as did the size of the computer used and the work environment, "it should be emphasized that even under such working conditions, our results were extremely consistent over a 3-year period," Nakazawa and colleagues note. The researchers call for more research into the relationship between computer use and physical, mental and sleep symptoms. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Copyright 2002 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Story Tools ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Top Stories * Top Stories [1] [1] [1] [1] New discs: [tz] Bush: Iraq facing [tz] Unfriendly but 'final test' better sound Prosecutor: Juvenile's TechWeb: Microsoft memo fingerprints only ones on questions anti-Linux efforts sniper rifle Spy scandal ripples at Will the real Eminem Sweden's Ericsson please stand up? Too much screen time can Italian anti-war march make you sick attracts 200,000 * SEARCH * * CNN.COM: [ ] [] ● * [1] (C) 2002 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. All external sites will open in a new An AOL Time Warner Company. All Rights external browser. Reserved. link CNN.com does not endorse external Terms under which this service is sites. provided to you. Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us. *