This pandemic has done a lot of things to us and one of the major things it has done to us is to affect our eyes.
All of us were locked in our homes and we all watched a lot of Netflix and some people who didn’t watch TV started watching it just out of boredom.
Yes, to a great extent, our eyes were affected because of this lockdown but we don’t realize it.
“Our eyes were not designed to use computers especially for long periods of time, and as a result, many people who spend long hours reading or working on a computer experience eye discomfort and vision problems,” said Barbara L. Horn, O.D., President of the American Optometric Association.
There have been cases of children getting specs in this lockdown as they resided to their homes and attended online classes. Online classes weren’t a thing before and students didn’t stick to their screens for hour-long classes but in this pandemic did and it affected their eyes drastically.
Dr Thomas Aller who is an ophthalmologist said about students who had to attend online classes in this lockdown that his school-age patients would experience “excess myopia progression” due to remote learning, and living in a world where going outside is generally discouraged. He conducted a survey of 65 of his myopia patients, all of whom were children and were being actively treated for myopia.
“Everybody who spends a lot of time working on computers and digital devices is a major risk of developing dry eyes, which may sound trivial,” Aller said. “In reality, most dry eye conditions are caused by gland atrophy in the lids.”
Now we won’t get into the science stuff of how increased screentime affects our eyes.
What are the solutions?
Now, when many things have opened up, there are a few things you have to attend online. And it is a fact that we can’t ever run from excess screentime.
But we can control it. Having a schedule is the best thing to track such things.
Nowadays even Instagram has this meter where you can see how much time do you spend on it.
You can control such things for yourself and if you are a parent you must make a schedule for your children as well.
To stay away from the harmful effects of your phones blue rays you must also have “no phone zones” at night where you basically switch off your phone.
If you have heavy computer work from home then you must exercise blinking exercise. It really helps a lot. Take a break every hour.
Dr Aller says “Blink five purposeful blinks with complete closures, On your final blink, you squeeze and hold for a little while.”
So, we have a lot of digital distractions — some of them are very important like work but you can get through it.
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