"If children get outside enough, it doesn't matter how much they study they do. They don't become myopic," said Ian Morgan, researcher at Australian National University.[0]
"Researchers say kids and teens need to get sunlight during the critical years of their development while their eyeballs are still growing.
"The mechanics of how sunlight protects their eyes are not clearly understood. One theory suggests that sunlight triggers the release of dopamine in the retina; another speculates that blue light from the sun protects from the condition.
"The solution is simple. Have kids "spend more time outside, have less demands (from) the schools and relax a bit," said Seang Mei Saw, professor of epidemiology at the National University of Singapore."
Meanwhile we put 5-6 year olds in kindergarten classrooms with UV-blocking windows all day, for about 9 months during the part of the year with the least sunlight available, and we've cut recess time down to almost nothing, and schools increasingly don't send kids outside if the weather's anything other than perfect. At my kids' school they don't even have indoor recess if they keep them in! They just watch a damn movie. WTF. Of course there was some stupid educational fad that led them to remove all the toys from lower-grade classrooms to make room for "learning centers" (I gather this has happened more or less state-wide), so I guess if the gym's not available they can't really do indoor recess anyway, not that it helps their eyesight either way. And this is a very highly-ranked school for our state.
1.5 hours of recess daily minimum or bust for 3rd grade and under, I say, and I think that's not quite enough, really. Screw this 30 minutes crap. Know how I can guarantee my kids have behavior problems at home? Coop them up inside all day. Know how I make a day run smoothly? Make sure they're outside running around at least a couple hours while the sun's up. Then consider that they're giving a bunch of them nearsightedness on top of definitely creating behavioral and learning problems. It's crazy.
I think it's all a side effect of the treadmill that society is putting everyone on. Between globalization and automation there are fewer good jobs that more people are competing for. Either you end up with what used to be a lot of money or way too little. Till you "made it" you are constantly at risk at slipping off the treadmill and into the "way too little" group. Especially in the US.
May this be reality or not, it's the experienced reality for many. We feel so much pressure to give our kids a head start which results in this rat race starting earlier and harder. I think this is just collateral damage from that shit going wrong. I'm so glad I was a kid in the 80s when playing outside was still normal.
I also dont like how people put sunscreen on the kids almost every time they go out. I live in Australia, so you absolutely do want to protect your skin, but heading to the park for an hour doesn't need sunscreen every time.
2 generations ago it was common to literally lie in the sun for hours putting coconut oil on your skin to increase tanning. And yes they did have higher skin cancer rates but there is a fair gap between that and not doing it + a long sleeve shirt/hat.
Im trying to move to a screen free Sunday to encourage more outdoors/interaction but screens are so ingrained in our lives now its not popular.
I'm sure there is a correlation, maybe even a strong one, but I have quite a bit of anecdata to suggest it is not true in all cases.
(I grew up on a farm, and spent a helluva lot of time outside, and needed glasses long before my family had a computer; my father would have spent even more time outside than I did, and likewise is pretty nearsighted.)
The link references the rate of myopia in South Korea increasing from 18% in 1955 to 96% in 2011. This suggests 2 things:
1. Myopia is not entirely genetic, because genes for myopia could not have spread to almost all Koreans from almost no Koreans in the span of 56 years.
2. Myopia is somewhat genetic, because myopia existed in a significant proportion of the pre-industrial population.
Had the inverse situation observed too. One of my friends has been writing code intensely since at least the age of 11, still spending tons of time in front of the screen. Never needed glasses in his entire life. And then there is me, who had very limited access to screen time as a kid, and I still ended up needing glasses around the age of 15 (despite none of my parents needing glasses, which goes to show that "genetic" doesn't necessarily mean something as simple as "your parents are this way, so you are bound to be the same way").
I am not a doctor, but imo it is similar to a lot of other health concerns. Predominantly genetic, but you can still affect the outcome in slight ways and improve your chances a bit.
Personal example: my grandfather who has been smoking at least a pack a day since the age of 9, and he is still doing way better in his 80s than majority of people his age. Working in the garden (even physically demanding stuff, like preparing the soil for potatoes every summer), fully mentally sound, etc. On another hand, you have plenty of young people who do everything right (no smoking, healthy diet, regular proper exercise, etc.) falling due to random health ailments. Which goes to show that while taking care of yourself is important and beneficial, the luck of hand you got can override it all in either direction at any moment.
Back when I first moved into my current place in 2013, I was able to read my stove's clock from across two rooms. My eyesight had steadily degraded since then until last year/early this year, where I needed to step into the closer room before I was able to read it.
...But then, the lockdown started. And since then, despite being on the computer for more of the day and not often going out into the sunlight, my eyesight has been improving. I can clearly read the clock from across both rooms again.
Since I don't really open my blinds, I've gotten pretty much continuous indoor levels of light for two months now, so I've my own theory: It's not specifically sunlight, but having to adjust to the differing brightness between indoor and outdoor light too often that causes issues.
I agree. This is the first time I’ve heard of it. Literally everyone in my family wears glasses, including my deceased grandfather who lived into his 90s. He grew up in rural Mexico without electricity so it absolutely couldn’t have been caused by TV or Computers
What did you spend your time doing though? Did you read a lot? Did you draw? Did you spend a lot of time working on things within arms reach? Or did you spend your time staring off into the far yonder? Isn't there a case to be made that sunlight is more of a signal used to help the eyes learn to focus and that by staring at something a foot away with low signal strength the eyes never got the feedback necessary to shape itself to the environment that it needs to work in?
Does anyone know if this also applies for people in their early 20s? Of course more sunlight and exercise never hurts, but I’d be more compelled if there’s scientific evidence that it stops myopia progression.
Anecdotally I had great vision (20/15) before starting college. Before I went to college the eye doctor said not to bother coming back until I got married. After 3 years of looking at a screen in the dark I needed glasses.
Isn't near-sightedness an adaptation? Nearsighted people can see closer things better. For example, I don't have clinical eye problems but I have some friends who are severely near-sighted, and they can read the security text on US money whereas I cannot.
Reminder that being outdoors and sunlight have nothing to do with myopia. It's about how much light is focusing on your fovea and in peripheral vision. Being outside is just one common way that your peripheral vision isn't constantly in focus because there's not a screen filling up most of your periperal vision.
Your statement does not make clear whether you're making a positive assertion about the mechanism of myopia, or whether you're making an assertion about some other potential eye condition.
If you are making a positive assertion about the mechanism about myopia, then you are directly contradicting the article, which states the mechanism is not clear. While it may be the case that the article is misrepresenting the science, I personally find this to be unlikely.
In which case, given you are asserting an alternate hypothesis compared to the null hypothesis presented in the article, I do ask you for some more backup to your claims.
So a few minutes ago I wrote code for a company, producing economic value. Last night I kept up with family, maintaining healthy personal relationships. Right now I'm engaging in intellectual discussion of major issues with other people. And last night I watched an episode of Mr. Robot, engaging my brain with a stimulating story. And yes, sometimes I just look at animal gifs on imgur.
I see no problem continuing any of this for 34 collective years.
I'm 32 and needed glasses for the first time last year, just mild nearsightedness which runs in my family, and I'm actually doing better than most (my mom and sister both needed glasses as teenager).
I eat healthy/exercise and use dark-mode themes where available to minimize glare. That's it's for eye health. I wonder if the negative association of eye health to screen time is less about the screens and more about high blood pressure brought on by being sedentary. High blood pressure absolutely destroys the eyes over time.
You don't go blind from staring at a screen. Claims otherwise are the same as 5G conspiracy theories. Photons are photons.
You might get issues from focusing at the same distance all the time. Or that theory about dopamine may be true - but if anything, screens are an improvement over things like paper books. And it applies to adolescence anyway.
And nearsightedness is not anywhere near going blind.
This article is about the effects of eye strain, not the overall mental health of looking at content on a screen.
With that in mind, what is it about a screen (emitted light) that is worse than outdoors reflect light? One item I can think of, is that looking at something with reflected natural light, the iris contracts based on the total amount of light hitting it. Whereas a screen may be brighter than the ambient light in the room, causing more of a point source of light to hit the retinas that would normally happen (which is why I've always found it more comfortable to watch TV with some other light on in the room vs. the room in total darkness).
Screens are optimized for energy efficiency, so their emissions are restricted to a narrow range of visible frequencies. They don’t even really cover the whole range of colors, but mix them by combining RGB, which isn’t the real thing. Eg you can make something looking like violet light by mixing blue and red, but it’s not the same thing as the „real“ violet.
Sunlight, however, is a wild mix of broadband EM emissions across basically the whole spectrum, as you‘d expect from a glowing ball of plasma (halogen bulbs are actually similar in that regard, they need and do have a UV filter). About a third of the sun’s emitted energy hits the earth’s surface as near infrared light, and then there is UV etc.
Near infrared light is very beneficial, the mitochondria in our cells can increase their energy output as a direct consequence of receiving photons in that frequency range. There are lots of studies that showed improvement of many health conditions following near infrared or red light therapy. I wouldn’t be surprised if NIR light helped prevent myopia too.
As far as your visual system is concerned, "real" violet (e.g., from a tunable laser) and the "fake" RGB violet are pretty much the same--it's coded as the relative amounts of red/green or blue/yellow almost immediately after the cones.
My optometrist mentioned that one big problem with being in front of a screen is that the focal depth is close and constant, and that can cause headaches and other issues. She recommended I stare out a window or make a conscious effort to look into the distance for 10 minutes every hour.
This is what I've always heard as well. Your eye muscles end up "fixed" in a small range of positions, whereas with looking at stuff off-screen (and especially outdoors) your eye muscles do a wider variety of movements.
i dont know whether this is accurate, but i've found lighter color schemes for coding muuuch more pleasing on my eyes than extremely dark/contrast-y ones
Part of how myopia works: When your peripheral vision is in focus too much, because something is close to your face like a screen, your eye (which grows on its own, without brain involvement), is told to grow longer to to help reduce the over sharpening of the world it thinks it has.
This happens in developing humans, at some point in adulthood it's suspected this stops (although some people see worsening myopia past the typical age range where it stops).
Having less focus in your peripheral vision might help slow myopia progression, so possibly. However wearing glasses and contacts automatically add more focus to peripheral vision, signaling the eye to grow. So moving something further away from your face while wearing glasses or contacts may have less of an effect. Having periods of blurry vision, like looking at something far away for some time without glasses or contacts, may be beneficial in that it may signal the eye to become less football shaped to help correct for the blurriness it now is experiencing. However I haven't seen any evidence this can reverse or improve myopia, rather this just seems to slow its progression.
For white folk in the US, even the life expectancy at birth (arguably an inflated metric) hasn't increased by 34 years since 1900. For all people in the US (basically everywhere else, too, I think), that ~30-40 years is dominated by infant/youth mortality getting driven hard towards 0.
Assuming you sleep 8 hours, that only leaves 16 other hours for potential screen time of which 13 we are apparently looking at a screen. Lets assume another 30 minutes a day for getting washed & dressed, bio-breaks, brushing teeth, preparing food + drink etc (30 mins seems low, but I'm being generous), so 15.5 hours left.
So of all of our waking hours, we spend 13/15.5 = 84% of every minute we are awake looking at a screen? 50 seconds of every 60 seconds staring at a screen?
I bet I'm around 12-13 hours more days than not. Maybe higher. And my phone addiction/dependence is moderate compared to some so it probably comes in a distant 3rd after laptop (easily #1) and TV (all movies, shows, and video games combined)
> Lets assume another 30 minutes a day for getting washed & dressed, bio-breaks, brushing teeth, preparing food + drink etc (30 mins seems low, but I'm being generous), so 15.5 hours left.
Laptop on the dresser/counter playing Youtube. Phones are waterproof—read news or catch up on morning messages in the shower. Laptops that aren't giant bricks and have battery life good enough that you aren't constantly hunting for an outlet and towing your power supply around, plus (even more so) smartphones, have changed everything.
Also depends on how they're counting screen time. Kinda like TV-watching stats. My parents leave their living room TV on probably 15+ hours a day. Does that mean they're "watching TV" if they're making lunch (good view of the TV from the kitchen) but half paying attention to the TV? Or I've come over and we're talking but the TV's on and you (or at least I) can't entirely ignore it?
I can easily see myself hitting 12+ hours a day. 8 hours every day at work, then an hour of TV, then a few hours on my PC at home doing whatever. Plus, using my phone probably adds up to a decent little chunk.
Weekends might drag the average down a bit though, spend much less time in front of a screen on Saturday/Sunday.
I agree. I track my screen time on my computer and mobile phone. I feel like I have too much screen time, but there's no way I could consistently hit 13 hours of screen time per day, unless maybe I put TVs around my house to use as background viewing while I do other work.
Even if I spend 10 hours at the office, it's a challenge to get over 7 hours of screen time logged unless I actively avoid all discussions, meetings, and eat lunch at my desk.
Eye strain is a serious problem and actually becoming a bottleneck for my productivity. Flux and dark-mode everything are mandatory, and I recently bought blue-light filter glasses and can't stare at a computer screen without them anymore. I had been reading ebooks on my phone out of convenience, but I stopped due to the eye strain and will revert back to using the Kindle.
If you spend the majority of your life staring at a screen, don't take your eyesight for granted. As you age, it will deteriorate, and it's really not fun, especially when your career/livelihood depends on you being in front of a screen.
I think we are all in the same boat. For me switching from reading to hearing wherever the option makes sense helped a lot.
Basic news coverage is fine in podcast form, audiobooks work fine for non fiction (going at 2x or 3x speed doesn’t kill the atmosphere) and it makes a good excuse to exercise while listening.
Readit News
"Researchers say kids and teens need to get sunlight during the critical years of their development while their eyeballs are still growing.
"The mechanics of how sunlight protects their eyes are not clearly understood. One theory suggests that sunlight triggers the release of dopamine in the retina; another speculates that blue light from the sun protects from the condition.
"The solution is simple. Have kids "spend more time outside, have less demands (from) the schools and relax a bit," said Seang Mei Saw, professor of epidemiology at the National University of Singapore."
[0] https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/05/asia/myopia-east-asia/index.h...
edit: quotation marks
1.5 hours of recess daily minimum or bust for 3rd grade and under, I say, and I think that's not quite enough, really. Screw this 30 minutes crap. Know how I can guarantee my kids have behavior problems at home? Coop them up inside all day. Know how I make a day run smoothly? Make sure they're outside running around at least a couple hours while the sun's up. Then consider that they're giving a bunch of them nearsightedness on top of definitely creating behavioral and learning problems. It's crazy.
May this be reality or not, it's the experienced reality for many. We feel so much pressure to give our kids a head start which results in this rat race starting earlier and harder. I think this is just collateral damage from that shit going wrong. I'm so glad I was a kid in the 80s when playing outside was still normal.
2 generations ago it was common to literally lie in the sun for hours putting coconut oil on your skin to increase tanning. And yes they did have higher skin cancer rates but there is a fair gap between that and not doing it + a long sleeve shirt/hat.
Im trying to move to a screen free Sunday to encourage more outdoors/interaction but screens are so ingrained in our lives now its not popular.
If it's any consolation, the drawbacks of myopia are fairly negligible. This is one reason there's not a lot of effort expended to prevent it.
(I grew up on a farm, and spent a helluva lot of time outside, and needed glasses long before my family had a computer; my father would have spent even more time outside than I did, and likewise is pretty nearsighted.)
1. Myopia is not entirely genetic, because genes for myopia could not have spread to almost all Koreans from almost no Koreans in the span of 56 years.
2. Myopia is somewhat genetic, because myopia existed in a significant proportion of the pre-industrial population.
I am not a doctor, but imo it is similar to a lot of other health concerns. Predominantly genetic, but you can still affect the outcome in slight ways and improve your chances a bit.
Personal example: my grandfather who has been smoking at least a pack a day since the age of 9, and he is still doing way better in his 80s than majority of people his age. Working in the garden (even physically demanding stuff, like preparing the soil for potatoes every summer), fully mentally sound, etc. On another hand, you have plenty of young people who do everything right (no smoking, healthy diet, regular proper exercise, etc.) falling due to random health ailments. Which goes to show that while taking care of yourself is important and beneficial, the luck of hand you got can override it all in either direction at any moment.
Back when I first moved into my current place in 2013, I was able to read my stove's clock from across two rooms. My eyesight had steadily degraded since then until last year/early this year, where I needed to step into the closer room before I was able to read it.
...But then, the lockdown started. And since then, despite being on the computer for more of the day and not often going out into the sunlight, my eyesight has been improving. I can clearly read the clock from across both rooms again.
Since I don't really open my blinds, I've gotten pretty much continuous indoor levels of light for two months now, so I've my own theory: It's not specifically sunlight, but having to adjust to the differing brightness between indoor and outdoor light too often that causes issues.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09388-7
If you are making a positive assertion about the mechanism about myopia, then you are directly contradicting the article, which states the mechanism is not clear. While it may be the case that the article is misrepresenting the science, I personally find this to be unlikely.
In which case, given you are asserting an alternate hypothesis compared to the null hypothesis presented in the article, I do ask you for some more backup to your claims.
Deleted Comment
I see no problem continuing any of this for 34 collective years.
I eat healthy/exercise and use dark-mode themes where available to minimize glare. That's it's for eye health. I wonder if the negative association of eye health to screen time is less about the screens and more about high blood pressure brought on by being sedentary. High blood pressure absolutely destroys the eyes over time.
You might get issues from focusing at the same distance all the time. Or that theory about dopamine may be true - but if anything, screens are an improvement over things like paper books. And it applies to adolescence anyway.
And nearsightedness is not anywhere near going blind.
With that in mind, what is it about a screen (emitted light) that is worse than outdoors reflect light? One item I can think of, is that looking at something with reflected natural light, the iris contracts based on the total amount of light hitting it. Whereas a screen may be brighter than the ambient light in the room, causing more of a point source of light to hit the retinas that would normally happen (which is why I've always found it more comfortable to watch TV with some other light on in the room vs. the room in total darkness).
Sunlight, however, is a wild mix of broadband EM emissions across basically the whole spectrum, as you‘d expect from a glowing ball of plasma (halogen bulbs are actually similar in that regard, they need and do have a UV filter). About a third of the sun’s emitted energy hits the earth’s surface as near infrared light, and then there is UV etc.
Near infrared light is very beneficial, the mitochondria in our cells can increase their energy output as a direct consequence of receiving photons in that frequency range. There are lots of studies that showed improvement of many health conditions following near infrared or red light therapy. I wouldn’t be surprised if NIR light helped prevent myopia too.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09388-7
This happens in developing humans, at some point in adulthood it's suspected this stops (although some people see worsening myopia past the typical age range where it stops).
More seriously, what types of activities did screens replace? Was it talking to other people? Physical activities/labor? Reading? Nothing?
For white folk in the US, even the life expectancy at birth (arguably an inflated metric) hasn't increased by 34 years since 1900. For all people in the US (basically everywhere else, too, I think), that ~30-40 years is dominated by infant/youth mortality getting driven hard towards 0.
That seems quite high to me.
Assuming you sleep 8 hours, that only leaves 16 other hours for potential screen time of which 13 we are apparently looking at a screen. Lets assume another 30 minutes a day for getting washed & dressed, bio-breaks, brushing teeth, preparing food + drink etc (30 mins seems low, but I'm being generous), so 15.5 hours left.
So of all of our waking hours, we spend 13/15.5 = 84% of every minute we are awake looking at a screen? 50 seconds of every 60 seconds staring at a screen?
Seems high to me.
> Lets assume another 30 minutes a day for getting washed & dressed, bio-breaks, brushing teeth, preparing food + drink etc (30 mins seems low, but I'm being generous), so 15.5 hours left.
Laptop on the dresser/counter playing Youtube. Phones are waterproof—read news or catch up on morning messages in the shower. Laptops that aren't giant bricks and have battery life good enough that you aren't constantly hunting for an outlet and towing your power supply around, plus (even more so) smartphones, have changed everything.
Also depends on how they're counting screen time. Kinda like TV-watching stats. My parents leave their living room TV on probably 15+ hours a day. Does that mean they're "watching TV" if they're making lunch (good view of the TV from the kitchen) but half paying attention to the TV? Or I've come over and we're talking but the TV's on and you (or at least I) can't entirely ignore it?
Weekends might drag the average down a bit though, spend much less time in front of a screen on Saturday/Sunday.
Even if I spend 10 hours at the office, it's a challenge to get over 7 hours of screen time logged unless I actively avoid all discussions, meetings, and eat lunch at my desk.
If you spend the majority of your life staring at a screen, don't take your eyesight for granted. As you age, it will deteriorate, and it's really not fun, especially when your career/livelihood depends on you being in front of a screen.
Basic news coverage is fine in podcast form, audiobooks work fine for non fiction (going at 2x or 3x speed doesn’t kill the atmosphere) and it makes a good excuse to exercise while listening.