Smartphones: The antisocial network

More than 55 percent of the students involved in the survey in Wuhan said that they would not reform their smartphone habits despite possible health risks.

"Whatever harm there may be to health must be very limited," said Song Meng, a student at Huazhong Agricultural University. "It has been a source of entertainment before sleeping. I cannot imagine if not having a phone."

Human distance

Liu Juan's cousin, 30-year-old Su Huijun, said that her college life was different.

"When I was in college around 2000, there were no smartphones at all. We had dorm chat every night after the lights were switched off and it was one of the happiest memories of college life," said Su, who also admitted that she has become gradually hooked to the smartphone. "But I would rather have spent my college life without such phones."

In Su's opinion, smartphones have enlarged the distance between people. "People stare at their phones but ignore friends nearby," she said.

Su gave a widely reported example: A grandfather arranged a dinner party for two grandchildren, who spent the entire evening staring at their phones. The old man became irritated and left before the meal ended.

Sina.com, one of China's leading Web portals, recently conducted a survey on smartphone addiction among people under 35 years old. The results showed more than 50 percent of young people preferred communicating via smartphones or social networking sites than by talking face to face.

"Almost once every half an hour, I will check on my micro-blog account with my smartphone to see whether I have new messages or not," said netizen Rainingbow. Self-proclaimed as an introvert, he said that being able to closely follow friends' movements via smartphones provides the feeling of being involved in groups.

"It is hard to say whether smartphones make the distance between people longer or shorter," said another netizen, Ancleer, who claimed to be a sophomore in college. "It all depends. It truly makes me interact less with my classmates, but it shortens my distance with my friends in other places, even overseas. I can get in touch with them any moment I want."