Computer harmful for the eyes?!
Question: Are there any studies about this?
I'm not looking for personal opinions here but rather for cold hard facts.
Is staring at a computer screen harmful for your eyes?
Answers: Are there any studies about this?
I'm not looking for personal opinions here but rather for cold hard facts.
Is staring at a computer screen harmful for your eyes?
Yes computers can be harmful and yes there are studies that near work increases nearsightedness. The cold hard facts are all over the internet.
Almost everybody agrees genetics play the dominant role in refraction errors. Most eye doctors agree that some kind of environmental factors play a role on the progression of myopia. One big disagreement among eye doctors is whether near work influences myopia progression. Many of the eye doctors saying that near work doesn't increase myopia have not seen the recently strong research that shows this coerrelation or deny it by looking at other studies that may show it inconclusive. Besides I think some have been to medical school a long time ago when this research did not produce good case studies.
The reason I say comfortably that computers CAN be harmful to your eyes is because I've seen numberous studies that show a correlation between near work and greater amounts of myopia. Furthermore, research has found that societies that have a higher literacy rate have more people needing glasses. Differences in myopia rates among different races cannot account for this phenomenon because within the Alaskan Eskimo community in just one generation there was recorded a substancial increases of myopia that is too fast for genetic mutation.
(http://jmg.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/3...
The parents of these Eskimos had a low literacy level and had very little instances of nearsightedness while the children where getting a high rate of myopia and where going to school and studying a lot more. There is a lot more material you can read on the internet but I'll give you some links that I've gathered that will give you more solid facts on this matter:
(studies that show near work increases myopia)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11986...
http://archopht.ama-assn.org/cgi/content...
http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/pro...
http://www.iovs.org/cgi/content/abstract...
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf...
a bunch of information on myopia and environment
http://www.agingeye.net/myopia/myopiaind...
Furthermore some people get Computer Vision Syndrom from starring at there computer for tons of hours. CVS gives people usually constantly dry and irritated or strained eyes. I might have it myself but I haven't been diagnosed with it...
... Anything that requires long periods of time spent straining your eyes is obviously affecting them negatively.
I'm sure studies have been done, but logic also implies the answer is quite obvious.
I have heard (sorry I'm not sure if these are cold hard facts, but they are the closest I have) that for every hour spent looking at the computer screen, you should spend a minute or two looking at objects further away from you to 'exercise' your eyes in a way.