Persuasive Speech
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. It’s nice to see the cheerful faces of students in this lecture theatre. My name is Dr Lim Boon Leng and I am a psychiatrist at Dr BL Lim Centre
for Psychological Wellness and I am also the spokesperson of ScreenSavers. I am very
honoured to be invited as a guest speaker for the World Mental Health Day at NTU. It’s been
awhile since I stood in front of such a big group due to the covid restrictions. But it’s nice to
be able to be here today and I am going to share with you a topic that is not widely talked
about – The importance of screen time in moderation with the effects of your health.
What exactly is screen time? Screen time is actually the amount of time spent in front of a
device with a screen such as mobile phones, computers, television, video game consoles
and many more.
Do you keep track of the amount of screen time you spend daily on your devices? How
about receiving notifications of your screen time on your mobile devices, do you take a look
at it or simply ignore it?
To tell you the truth, I used to ignore the daily reports about the screen time that I receive on my phone because I felt like it was not important. However, as the pandemic started, I was constantly on my devices, be it my phone or my laptop and I felt like it was affecting me
physically and mentally such as I began to feel some strain in my eyes and my fingers. This
is one of the effects of excessive screen time.
I checked and to my horror, I spend an average of 9 hours and 15 minutes online. And
according to the 2021 Digital Report from We Are Social1, that is 3 hours more than the
global average who spends 6 hours and 4 minutes online everyday. I realised that my
excessive use of screen time is becoming an issue for me and is affecting my physical and
mental wellbeing.
Do you know that both Android and iOS have their own function where you can track your
screen time? Android has a digital wellbeing feature while iOS has it’s Screen Time feature.
As a psychiatrist, I have seen a 10 percent increase in patients with conditions such as
insomnia, increased stress level, not being able to focus at work and this is caused by
excessive screen usage2 in the recent months.
I have attended to patients who come for appointments while they are having meetings on
their electronic devices at the same time during the consultation. I have patients sharing with me that they realised with online communication tools, while working from home led to an increased amount of stress and anxiety level as well as physiological problems such as
having trouble sleeping. Not only that they realised that with more screen time, they find it
tough to concentrate on a daily basis. Some shared that it is tough to read the tone of the
messages while working from home and they have to constantly be checking on their
devices for messages. Hence, making them more frustrated and affecting them
psychologically.
One of the effects of excessive screen time is diminished social skills as we are
overdependent on our devices. We become so reliant on technology that you will trade off
going out with your friends to just meeting your friends online as it is more convenient. This
then becomes a problem as technology is hindering you from connecting with real life
interactions.
Too much screen time, also messes up your sleep routine as people tend to zone out when
they are scrolling through social media for new content mindlessly. And when you know it
you would be spending a lot of time and energy in it. It might seem relaxing to just scroll
through your feed however, it actually takes a strain on the mental effort. Not only that, if you keep using your phones in bed, you will associate your bed as a place to use your phone rather than a place for rest. Hence disrupting your circadian rhythm and in turn it, will be disruptive to your sleep.
However, technology can be of a blessing as it actually helps improve the quality of life
during Covid-19 with helping people to stay connected through the use of the internet during lockdowns. It has become a way for people to connect for work, school and play. But screen time has to be moderated or it will affect your mental and physical wellbeing.
I know that reducing screen time might not be easy for some of you but here are some easy
ways that you can start with. You can develop better habits by changing your daily routines.
One of such is that you should keep your beds electronic free so that your brain does not
think of it as a workspace and becomes cautious. You can also have off-screen time by
having a 15 min walk without your phone.
Or pick up hands-on activities such as painting, doing a crossword puzzle or reading a book.
This gives your eyes and body a break from staring at the screen. For the eyes, if you need
to be in front of the screen for long durations, you can adopt the 20-20-20 rule where for
every 20 minutes, you take 20 second breaks to look at something 20 feet or further away. It helps with reducing the strain on your eyes. Or you can just unplug from your devices, go out and enjoy spending time outdoors with your families or go hang out with your friends for a coffee and have a catch up session with them face-to-face instead of online.
To sum it all up, we cannot run away from screen time as it is an essential part of our life but we can learn how to use screen time in moderation to have a balanced and healthy life.
So are you going to allow screen time to disconnect you from real-life interactions or learn
how to unplug and disconnect?
Thank you for your time and I would like to wish everyone, happy World Mental Health Day!