6 ms·
Do books do the same damage to your eyes as screens?
by Andhurati 6y ago
Do books do the same damage to your eyes as screens?
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoProbably? It's not like screens shoot death rays. It seems very likely that looking closely at patterns within a rectangle has the same effects whether it's made of paper or electronics.
- TLightful 6y agoDepends which game you're playing.
- ping_pong 6y agoCRTs used to emit X-rays, so they actually did shoot death rays.
- jayd16 6y agoAny ray is a death ray given sufficient dosage.
- SketchySeaBeast 6y agoAnd that was the day the Care Bears let their stares full power be known.
- outworlder 6y agoThey are backlit though, that's a big difference. Not sure if any issues would be caused by this.
- sokoloff 6y agoIs it a big difference? If you take the reverse of ray tracing, why would a light beam of given intensity and wavelength act differently on my retina because it was directly transmitted vs reflected?
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoBacklit screens are brighter than a book under typical indoor lighting conditions. (Although this doesn't really support the original point, because the canonical alternative of going outside is much brighter than anything you do indoors.)
- sethammons 6y agodo screen damage your eyes?
- givehimagun 6y agoCan you provide evidence of where screens cause damage to eyes? My ophthalmologist shared with me that there is general irritation but we haven't been able to prove that screen times degrade eye sight over time.
- snazz 6y agoStaring at anything too close to your eyes for a long period of time isn't good for them. If you are taking appropriate breaks, my understanding is that screen time is harmless.
- vzidex 6y agoI've got the same understanding - I asked my ophthalmologist about it as well because my vision is already quite bad and I'm a computer engineer. For breaks, she recommended the "20/20/20 rule" - focus your eyes on something at least 20 feet away, for 20 seconds, every 20 minutes of screen usage.
- snazz 6y agoYes, I've gotten that recommendation as well. Apparently more natural light exposure may also decrease the risk for nearsightedness. Having a window near my computer monitor makes it easy to remember to look outside whenever I'm not actively looking at the screen.
- givehimagun 6y agoI think there is a nuance in reducing screen time versus increasing natural light exposure.
- SketchySeaBeast 6y agoDo screens do damage to your eyes? The article lists some side effects, but I wouldn't consider that any sort of eye damage, and it's certainly not permanent.
- thisiszilff 6y agoHey, do you have specific examples of the damage you're concerned about? I've been reading up about this a lot as it is something that concerns me, but so far most of what I've says that longterm damage is mitigated by taking regular eye breaks (ie, starting at something 20+ feet away every 20 minutes for 20 seconds) & getting enough sleep (giving the eyes time to properly rest). Are these mitigation strategies insufficient?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- olodus 6y agoIs that really supported by empirical trials? A short search online seems to point to that being somewhat disputed. I'm all for contradictory evidence though if you have some I missed. Yeah sure a screen is emitting light which maybe makes it worse for the eyes to look at in some ways and situations than a paper page, but "looking at light" is almost an oxymoron - isn't that what eyes do?
- groby_b 6y agoEyes usually look at diffusely reflected light, which has a different impact than direct light. A white reflective surface (whiteboard) in direct sunlight is 1.6cd/cm^2. Consumer monitors are ~300cd/cm^2 (I'm not sure how much bearing this actually has on eye health, this is just to illustrate how looking at a monitor and at a piece of paper is significantly different)
- TremendousJudge 6y ago>A white reflective surface (whiteboard) in direct sunlight is 1.6cd/cm^2. Consumer monitors are ~300cd/cm^2 Why does it hurt my eyes to look outside after a while looking at a screen in a well lit room? (the sun is not directly visible, just buildings, trees and sky)
- atomicnumber3 6y agoBecause the sun is an enormous sphere of hydrogen-helium plasma with a core that's undergoing fusion just due to gravity. Even indirect sunlight is still a very large amount of light and energy. I don't mean to sound flippant, but I think sometimes people forget just how insanely energetic stars of all sizes are.
- TremendousJudge 6y agoBut GP's point was that a screen is much brighter than a sunlit surface. You can't both be right, or I'm missing something.
- 6y ago
- pintxo 6y agoprobably yes. At least with [1] tpart of the problem is (very simplified) focusing too long on objects too near (book, screen, ...) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-sightedness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-sightedness
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y agoThere's always been a strong correlation between near-sightedness and reading books or looking at screens in childhood and early adulthood, and it was assumed for a long time that it was because of what you described (focusing on objects too near), but the latest research suggests something much more interesting is happening. Children who spend a couple hours per day outside have extremely low rates of near-sightedness, so they think there's something about the eyes being exposed to direct sunlight that's necessary for them to grow properly.
- ModernMech 6y agoDoes that matter? Running damages your knees. Playing tennis damages your elbow. Throwing a ball damages your shoulder. I do the thing I love while staring at the screen. If it damages my eyes that's the price I pay. I'm not going to stop doing it.
- geebee 6y agoNo idea, but I'm not sure it's material to whether "staring at books" is a good description of reading.
- ergocoder 6y agoYes, it does, especially when reading in poor lighting and poor posture. It turns out the best way to not damage an organ is to not use it...
- jedberg 6y agoScreens haven't damaged your eyes for a long time. That was only true on the old CRT displays, which literally shot high frequency EM at your eyes.
- squeaky-clean 6y agoIf you believe my parents then all the years of reading books at night with almost no ambient light would have destroyed my eyes.