How often do you find yourself remain hooked up to your smartphone screen busy texting? If it is prolonged for hours, you may be unknowingly harming your eyesight as revealed from a study. Not only the smartphone, prolonged staring at computers, tablets and flat TV screens may also do the same.
In a field study carried out selecting a sample population of 2000 people, it was revealed that those below 25 years of age check their smartphones around 32 times in a day. Checking Emails, facebook updates and notifications, weather forecasts and breaking news headlines keep them occupied with their devices every now and then.
The blue-violet light emitted from the screen has a highly precarious impact on the back of your eyes and has toxic elements as well. Although studies suggest that exposure to blue light is vision healthy, an overexposure would cause adverse effects.
Research further reveals that an average adult spends almost 40% of his waking time glued to the screen and this unhealthy engagement boils down to blurred and disturbed vision in the long run.
The eyes are your visual contact with the world. They are far more than just a sense organ. They are, in fact, a window through which you get a rush of positive and negative feelings. They are a direct conduit to your soul and without them, the world around you would practically stand nonexistent.
Small screens big woes:
Statistical data show that 43 % of people under 25 feel restless when they do not have access to their smartphone. Continued engagement with the smartphone screen thickens the lens of your eyes. The nerves in your eyes lose mobility and get hardened and even calcification of eye sets in.
So far we go by what Jeff Taylor, MD, Medical Director for yoursightmatters.com has to say, it appears that one out of every four patients kicks up a fuss about straining their eyes when reading microscopic texts on smartphone screens.
How smartphone screen is straining your eyes?
As a consequence of continuous peering at the small screen you:
- Squint to read the texts on the screen
- Extend your arm adjusting the text fonts to preschool size
- Finally, opt for drugstore readers
This squinting habit while reading texts strains your facial, neck and shoulder muscles causing eye fatigue leaving you with a blurred vision. Normally, we blink 15 times per minute but screen gazing reduces this to a great extent causing enough strain to your eyes.
Smartphone blindness is a reality:
According to New England Journal of Medicine, a sort of smartphone blindness may be a result of differential bleaching of photo pigment to which the reader’s eye gets accustomed. They have identified two patients habituated in reading small screen texts while lying on bed with one side of the face almost hidden in darkness suffered from this temporary blindness.
The American Optometric Association (AOA) says any type of discomfort people feel after gazing at the screens for a long time can be called as Computer Vision Syndrome. The blue light or popping ads cannot be entirely blamed but it is the prolonged undivided attention that we maintain while gazing at the screen gives rise to this syndrome.
Around 55 % of smartphone display consumers complain about strain in eyes for continuous hours of logging into the favorite networking sites. It is high time these habitual screen gazers get their eyes tested by opticians on a regular basis. Taking frequent breaks from watching computer screens and other display devices is good for eye health.
Can you dwell in a smartphone-free world?
Well, in a way NO. In today’s competitive world where information is the king, you cannot simply afford to stay out of touch with the world that smartphone brings in front of you in a jiffy. You need to have a total control over your consumption habits. Even kids should be trained to cultivate the habit.
Reversing computer vision syndrome:
A 20-20-20 rule devised by AOA recommends staring at an element at a distance of 20 feet away for 20 seconds. This should be practiced after every 20 minutes of staring at the screen. This will eliminate headaches, blurred vision, eyes strain and vision exhaustion.
A note of optimism can also be felt in using magnifying glasses that are designed to treat presbyopia. They aid in reading minute texts, emails and notifications in at smartphones at a standard reading distance of 16 inches.
Never let computer syndrome have a grip on your vision:
Any discomfort in the eyes stemming from long hours of exposure to the screen should be reported to an eye specialist. Computer Vision Syndrome or Smartphone Blindness whatever name you assign is not only confined within blindness of the eyes but also blinds your mind; a mind that fails to observe and feel anything beyond the digital screen. Your visionary spirit suffers.