Could the over-use of smartphone’s cause long-term damage to your eyes? That’s the visionary view of a certain group of healthcare professionals who though unrelated happenstance sell spectacles…
It’s hard to argue with opticians when it comes to eye-facts – you may have the ocular orbs, but they have all the wall charts with letters on, special lenses, those funny frame-adjusting pliers and, well, all manner of assorted ophthalmic equipment that we non-peeper-keepers generally don’t have to hand. So when they say our beloved techie toys are causing us problems perhaps it would be prudent to pay attention.
The bottom-line, according to the opticians, is over-use. A survey of 2000 people revealed that under 25s tended to check their phones 32 times a day and that spending this amount of time staring at such a mix of colour and light was liable to leave them looking like Velma from Scooby Doo after losing her glasses again in later life.
“Blue violet light is potentially hazardous and toxic to the back of your eyes,” said Optician Andy Hepworth to BB Newsbeat, “So over a long period of time it can potentially damage your eyes. When you’re looking at a smartphone, the light peeking out of that is blue violet.”
According to Andy, tests have shown that over exposure to said blue violet light can potentially increase the risk of macular degeneration which, while sounding like an indie band, actually leads to blindness.
“Although we don’t know if there’s a direct link with it creating eye problems, there is strong lab evidence it can potentially do that,” continues Andy. “It’s the combination of not blinking enough and bringing the device closer than you normally look at objects – it strains your eyes.”
Straight from the horse’s mouth stuff, then, that probably means we should all go for an expensive eye-test immediately; or do you think the opticians have seen us coming?
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