Your screen could be damaging your eyes
Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology has found a shocking number of students with below average eyesight. Their recent study found that an unprecedented 25.3% of students do not have a standard score of 1.0 (equivalent of 20/20 in the U.S.). 67% of high school students and 34% of elementary school students also do not have baseline average vision. Something is making students’ vision far worse. The Japanese government thinks it has the answer: smartphones.
Smartphones and Eyesight
Researchers have proven that blue light can damage the delicate cells in our retinas. It can cause irreversible damage and macular degeneration. Basically, it’ll reduce sharpness and eventually lead to blindness.
Pixel Eyewear glasses, Ventus frame
Our electronics emit a large amount of blue light. This makes focusing on items on the screen difficult. Yellow filters like Night Shift and F.lux, alongside computer glasses like those from Felix Gray and Pixel Eyewear, are incredibly helpful. They can make focusing on items easier as well as reduce damage caused by blue light.
People should also follow the 20-20-20 rule. Every 20 minutes, find something that is at least 20 feet away, and look at it for 20 seconds. This will let your muscles responsible for focusing your eyes relax.
Other Causes?
Nothing beyond electronics usage has increased so substantially within the past decade to cause this. Studying hard, reading for long hours, or reading in the dark could cause this as well, but only if the rates of those activities have increased in the past ten years. They haven’t.
People are smarter about wearing sunglasses and sunscreen outdoors than ever before. Our reading is moving more from physical mediums to electronic mediums. This carries an added danger of viewing a lit screen in a dark setting. The difference between the light your eyes let in from the screen and your surroundings can cause eye strain. This was less of a problem before, when actual lights were required to read books.
Night shift on macOS. Make sure you’re using it!
It’s clear that, with our new electronics dependencies, we have to be extra careful with our eye health. Use computer glasses when looking at a screen for any length of time. Practice the 20-20-20 rule. Don’t read in a dark room, no matter what you’re reading on.
Staring at a phone for hours with harsh blue light is the most likely culprit here. We hold phones too close to our faces and the light they emit not only increase eye strain, but could also emit harmful blue light in dangerous quantities. If you want your vision to last, you’ll have to pay attention to the warnings right in front of you.
Sources:
- Koh Ruide, SoraNews24
- Saqib Shah, Engadget