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Our smartphones have become an extension of our every day life. Walk down the street and you’ll see loads of people staring into these “tiny” screens that keep us captivated for hours on end. This continues from the time that we wake up, until the time we pass out due to exhaustion with that screen being the last thing we look at. The problem with this isn’t just the fact that we as a society are becoming more and more disconnected with the real world, but that our eyes are taking a beating.
The New England Journal of Medicine has published its findings from two different cases where women were subjected to what’s been classified as “transient smartphone blindness”. The women, aged 22 and 40, both experienced temporary vision loss for up to 15 minutes at a time, and after many exams, there still wasn’t an answer.
The common denominator between these two women? They would both use their smartphones while in bed, with one eye closed or covered by a pillow. This leaves the other eye to do all the work, and when trying to use the closed eye again, the eye that was left open is working to adjust to the dark.
According to the report, “Transient Smartphone Blindness” is not an indicator of a deeper issue with your body. Instead, the doctor’s suggest that these are isolated incidents and instead of just looking at your phone with one eye at night, use both. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s definitely something that needs to be stated to help combat this from becoming a more wide-spread issue.
We’ve seen third-party solutions to dim the screen on your devices to make it easier to look at your screens at night without causing any damage. Google and Apple have both integrated different ways to ease the strain on our eyes, especially when looking at these screens at night time. However, that doesn’t change the fact that our eyes aren’t supposed to be working this hard all the time.
[Gadgets 360 via New England Journal of Medicine]
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