
Lots of People Are Losing Distance Vision, and No One Knows Why - walterbell
https://www.wired.com/2016/02/silent-epidemic-myopia/
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user0x
Nobody knows why? I don't believe that. I can tell you why. Because they keep
looking and focusing on their computer monitors, their laptop screens, their
tablets, and their phones, and rarely look up. For hours, for weeks, for
months, for years. For kids who are still developing, surely this will be an
issue. People playing computer games that create effects that their eyes would
normally do; blur effects, dust effects, light effects... Prolonged usage is
confusing their eyes - Eyes trying to unblur a blurred screen. Eyes trying to
look deep into the distance, but in truth they are focusing on a screen 12
inches away... When's the last time these people 'losing distance vision' got
outside and looked around?

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John23832
People are spending every waking hour looking at screens up close and our eyes
are adjusting.

This isn't new, nor is it surprising. Many optometrists know this.

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Scaevolus
Insufficient exposure to bright light is the most accepted explanation, not
time spent focusing up close. 90% of Asian schoolchildren are shortsighted.

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John23832
I think there might be some cause and effect there... how often do you look at
a screen in bright light?

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jessriedel
Um, unsurprisingly, they thought of that

> Rose's team tried to eliminate any other explanations for this link — for
> example, that children outdoors were engaged in more physical activity and
> that this was having the beneficial effect. But time engaged in indoor
> sports had no such protective association; and time outdoors did, whether
> children had played sports, attended picnics or simply read on the beach.
> And children who spent more time outside were not necessarily spending less
> time with books, screens and close work. “We had these children who were
> doing both activities at very high levels and they didn't become myopic,”
> says Rose. Close work might still have some effect, but what seemed to
> matter most was the eye's exposure to bright light.

[http://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-
boom-1.17120](http://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-boom-1.17120)

The evidence is far from overwhelming, but the data is a lot more useful than
your layman intuition...

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John23832
Calm down fancy pants. I'm sorry I was responding to the information in the
article rather than going out and doing more research.

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watertom
Up until just very recently everything we viewed was reflected light, now we
are bombarding our eyes with light shining directly into our eyes, TV,
Computer screens, phone screens.

It's impacting our vision, and I think it's playing a role in concussion
issues.

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jbmorgado
This is a topical click bait tittie for Wired.

Researchers and medical community already are reaching consensus on the why.
Being the leading theory a deficiency in the sphericity of the ocular globe
due to a lack of a growth hormone that ought gets triggered correctly if you
have enough exposition to sun light while growing up.

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slv77
More specifically bright lights and sharp gradients on the retina stimulate
the release of dopamine in the retina which blocks the elongation of the eye.

[http://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-
boom-1.17120](http://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-boom-1.17120)

