Japanese girl injured by moving train while using smartphone

A 17-year-old Japanese girl was hit and injured by a moving train while walking along the edges of the station platform, fully engrossed in her smartphone, the media reported. The incident occurred at Kugenumakaigan Station in Fujisawa, at around 1.30 p.m. on Saturday, Japan Today reported. The girl was walking along the edges of the platform, looking at her smartphone. Her head was slightly tilted toward the tracks and an approaching train on the Odakyu line – the main line of Japanese private railway operator Odakyo Electric Railway – hit her, Sankei Shimbun was quoted as saying. She received a slight head injury, the police said. Out of the 229 train delays caused by objects falling on tracks in April and May in seven prefectures or administrative divisions, 23 per cent were due to smartphones being dropped, said a recent report from the East Japan Railway Company – the major passenger railway company in Japan. Studies have shown a lot of varied risks associated with smartphone usage, some of them being users going blind in one eye because of smartphone usage at night, or a communication breakdown between a mother and children as even preschoolers are hooked on to smartphones, video games and television. When kids as young as ten are now getting hooked on to smartphones, it might be time to rethink how much importance we give these gadgets in our daily lives. IANS