29 ms·
Shortsightedness has become an epidemic
- kosyblysk666 4y agono, the real epidemic is MENTAL shortsightedness
- Stratoscope 4y agoI've written about this before, but it bears repeating. However good your vision is when you're young, it will change as you get older. Most people become more farsighted as they age. Typically it starts when you are around 40 and changes rapidly for the next decade. After that it tends to settle down. More importantly, the lenses in your eyes become more rigid, losing their ability to focus at different distances. When I was younger, one eye was a bit nearsighted and the other a bit farsighted. This allowed me to get away without glasses longer than I should have. Even if I wasn't seeing clearly with both eyes, I could see at most distances with one eye. As my eyes' focus distance lengthened, my nearsighted eye attained close to normal vision, and my farsighted eye was focused past infinity. Not good. When I got my first pair of prescription single vision computer glasses, it was life-changing. Now I could see my laptop screen perfectly. I told my optometrist I wanted something like single vision reading glasses, but adjusted for the distance to my laptop screen, about 20", unlike the typical 16" focus distance of a reading prescription. In fact, this started to make me fussy about using high-DPI displays (~200 DPI) instead of the low-DPI displays (~100 DPI) I'd previously used. On a low-DPI display I could see the pixels! It does mean that when I use external monitors with the laptop, I need to have them also at this 20" distance. So to augment the laptop screen, I have a 24" 4K monitor in landscape mode immediately above it, and a second 24" 4K monitor in portrait mode to the left. Both of the external monitors are at about the same 20" distance from my eyes, and each of the three displays is angled differently so the center of the monitor is aligned with my vision: the laptop display at a typical laptop angle, the one above it closer to vertical (but still tilted a bit), and the one on the left at an in-between angle. The bottom of this monitor is about a half inch above my desk, just enough room to let cables run under it. This is a fairly glorious setup. All three displays are in focus for me, and the portrait display is great for reading documentation, especially PDF files that are so awkward on a landscape display. The key to this is the single vision glasses. I have seen so many people try to use progressive lenses with their computers, and they are always craning their neck back so they can see through the lower part of the lens that has a closer focus distance. Single vision lenses let everything be in focus at once, especially with the portrait mode monitor. Another key is that the computer glasses should have a fairly tall profile, not the truncated rectangular lenses that are so popular. This greatly improves the field of view. On my last visit to the optometrist they suggested lenses with a blue light filter. I said no thanks on that. Sometimes I do photo editing, and the blue light filter shifts everything to a warmer color. The way I solve the problem of too much blue light is that I simply don't turn my monitor brightness up so high. It is set so a white background is about the same brightness as a piece of white paper in the same lighting. I also have progressive glasses that I use for everything else when I'm not at the computer. These have magnetic clip-on sunglasses, which are pretty great. Indoors I can leave the sunglasses off and just use the progressives on their own. Because I wear aloha shirts with a pocket, I can keep the sunglass lenses in my pocket and I hardly know they are there. When I step outside or go driving, I just snap on the magnetic clip-ons and I'm good to go. The frames with magnetic clip-ons are a bit uncommon these days, but they are well worth finding. If anyone is curious I can look up the brand and exact model number for both the round single vision and the progressives I'm using.
- ayewo 4y agoPlease share links, thanks.
- nilsbunger 4y agoI didn’t realize the evidence is strong that daylight keeps kids from becoming near-sighted. Making young kids study all the time is killing their eyesight!
- solarmist 4y agoI thought this was relatively well known.
- Simon_O_Rourke 4y agoIt'd be interesting if someone could try and relate this statistic to the typical solar index for an area - https://globalsolaratlas.info/map https://globalsolaratlas.info/map I thought it would have been to do with the consumption of starches and carbs https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2003/sep/21/shopping.foodanddrink https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2003/sep/21/shoppin...
- etaioinshrdlu 4y agoI sometimes wonder if UV protective glasses block some possible benefit of UV light to eyes.
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y agoI have often wondered this myself, but the dangers of UV light seem to be well documented, with no benefits. If you wear UV protective glasses most of the time you can almost elimate cataracts. The UV index here in southern Australia tends to be high to extreme most days during the warmer months, so I tend to wear UV protective sun glasses anytime I'm outside.
- InvaderFizz 4y agoI'm not sure there are any known benefits that outweigh the costs of UV exposure. That said, there is emerging research that the lack of NIR light is very detrimental to all kinds of health conditions[0]. Over the past two years, I've moved to ensuring that I get plenty of indirect sunlight. As NIR can go through most clothing and foliage produced shade, it's quite pleasant and relaxing to spend time in it. I also have large concerns with the move to thermal insulation efficiency that we now have. Indoor Air and quite easily become stagnant due to lack of outdoor exchange and the the low-emissivity glass used in high end windows block most NIR. Couple that with a lack of NIR emitters (incandescent is gone, camp fires are gone), and I think we are in for a world of hurt, even more so than today. Indoor Air quality can be mostly solved with use of ERVs to cycle the air with minimal energy loss. I'm not sure how you solve for low-emissivity glass other than not using it and designing your structure to limit direct sunlight exposure for the window itself and use shade/curtains/blinds for thermal control when needed. 0: https://doi.org/10.32794/mr11250016 https://doi.org/10.32794/mr11250016
- julianbuse 4y agoWhen I read the title, I thought they meant not thinking ahead. This makes much more sense though!
- SkyMarshal 4y agoSame, though to me the title still made complete sense that way.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- scotty79 4y agoCould we just have rooms lit as strongly as outdoors?
- Fordec 4y agoShort answer, yes. Long answer, you'll need to really jack up the power consumption. Replicating a thing that in itself an energy source needs waaaay more than just a 60W light bulb.
- coffeeblack 4y ago60W would be some 10 LED lights that each are 100W equivalents to old glow lights. That would probably already do the trick in a small room. Do people really still use old “light bulbs”?
- PeterisP 4y ago> 60W would be some 10 LED lights that each are 100W equivalents to old glow lights. That would probably already do the trick in a small room. Not really, daylight is not 10 times but much more brighter than a 100w incandescent lamp, such illumination (e.g. it has certain uses to help seasonal depression) exists but it's very bright compared to normal indoors lighting. The old 100w lamps were ~1600 lumens; outdoors daylight is something like 10k lumens/square meter in shade (direct sunlight would be another order of magnitude more), and an appropriate number for the surfaces of a small room would be in the ballpark of 100 of such LEDs so 600w of electricity.
- coffeeblack 4y agoInteresting! Thanks for the correction.
- Sunspark 4y agoYes, I do. Where I live, winters are long, so none of the heat is wasted. But that aside, the real reason is the quality of the light. Spectra! Incandescent lighting is a black body radiator basically, so you will have a full spectra curve even if it is weighted toward the red side. The downside of LEDs (and the CCFLs that preceded them) is that they only have a few narrow peaks in the spectra, R G B at differing heights and the rest of it is low. This is why colour rendition generally looks poor, and even worse, they flicker! Because we live in a society that wants everything as cheap as possible, the LEDs generally flicker at 60 or 120 Hz, sometimes higher. This causes a strobing effect, etc. This can be avoided by using DC current, but who uses that? CCFLs used electronic ballasts with much higher rates but they're not on the market anymore. Incandescents have a small degree of flicker too, but it's basically non-existent because as black-body radiators they continue glowing until the next pulse arrives.. LEDs are not like that, they are instant on-off, and their "dimming" trick is usually pulse-width-modulation where they're still fully light, but their duty cycle is spaced further apart, you think it is dimmer but it is not. LEDs are a terrible technology for lighting.
- zeroth32 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- OrwellianTimes 4y agoAgree man! Lockdown was just really unjustified on society. It made no sense for such a minor disease which I'm sure would have been dismissed as flu 60 years ago. I don't know what caused this overreaction, sure for 30-40 days but this thing has devastated billions of lives, left millions jobless and ruined an entire generation. It's sometimes necessary to have pandemics and diseases like this to control the population of society. Europe practically had a renaissance after the black death.
- lifeplusplus 4y ago2 million isn't few lives
- shrimp_emoji 4y ago... No... this has been happening for decades. In East Asia, the vast majority of people are now nearsighted, which has been a fun fact long before anyone even heard of COVID.
- jboogie77 4y agoAnyone have an unlocked link?
- spidersouris 4y agoHere you go: https://arxius.io/f/e9c469eb https://arxius.io/f/e9c469eb
- ayewo 4y agoThanks, but the contents of your linked PDF, which is just plaintext, no images, is different from the Archive copy of the article shared up-thread here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31712453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31712453 Did the Economist show you a different article with the same title due to your location?
- spidersouris 4y agoSorry about that! I used the website of my academic library which collects articles from a variety of newspapers, but it seems they got the wrong one.
- ayewo 4y agoNo worries :)
- gtsnexp 4y agoMyopia has been an epidemic for many years now. And the future prospects look grim. Fortunately, there are research groups tackling this issue hoping to develop some gene-therapy approach.
- jart 4y agoWhat? Why do we need to genetically engineer people for wearing glasses?
- harshreality 4y agoMyopia is a risk factor for floaters, retinal detachment, and glaucoma. It's objectively not neutral, despite that glasses exist. Glasses are also inconvenient, cost money, can be lost or broken, and don't cover the entire field of vision, and contacts have their own problems.
- jart 4y agoI can't believe you're serious. I wear glasses and there's nothing wrong with me. Last thing I want is to live in a world where I'm pressured to be genetically engineered for having the wrong kind of eyes.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Al-Khwarizmi 4y agoI wear glasses and there's nothing wrong with me at the moment either, and I hope it keeps being that way, but the augmented risks mentioned by the GP are real and well-attested. In fact, many ophtalmologists consider LASIK and their ilk to be cosmetic surgery, because it gets you rid of the glasses, but not of all the other consequences of myopia.
- kortilla 4y agoIf there’s nothing wrong with you, why are you wearing glasses? I wear hearing aids because my hearing is flawed. I would be ecstatic if there was a genetic solution.
- xapata 4y agoBut too much sunlight will cause retinal damage. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
- unbad505 4y agoIt isn't recommended to stare directly at the sun, and I think the suggested amount to spend outside each day as a child to prevent myopia is ~2 hours, but don't quote me on that.
- fillerInk 4y agoNot just with light, spending more time indoors means kids don't have to focus their eyes on longer distances these days. There would be a correlation between the amount of time spent indoors during the formative years and the chances of becoming myopic in the future.
- silisili 4y agoAgreed. My wife had no electricity for her child life, but is nearsighted... probably from reading books all the time as a kid. I don't believe that light has anything to do with it.
- stevenhuang 4y agoYou don't think reading in a low light environment has anything to do with it...?
- stevebmark 4y agoIt’s not related to light, it’s related to over focusing, especially in peripheral vision. Keeping things close to the face keeps things in focus, making the eye thinking it’s over focused, so it grows longer to defocus. It’s called emmetropization and it’s how the eye grows.
- Brajeshwar 4y agohttps://archive.is/4i9OA https://archive.is/4i9OA
- john-doe 4y agohttps://archive.ph/4i9OA https://archive.ph/4i9OA
- stackbutterflow 4y agoI noticed my eyesight gets better after many hours outside not looking at any screen. And worsen after many hours in front of a screen. Is there a name for that?
- misslibby 4y agoCould it just be dryness of the eyes?
- thiht 4y agoEyestrain
- d13 4y agoProbably because your pupils dilate in bright sunlight, which improves focus?
- plonk 4y agoSome websites call it "computer vision syndrome" [1], but it just seems like eyestrain to me. [1] https://www.aoa.org/healthy-eyes/eye-and-vision-conditions/computer-vision-syndrome?sso=y https://www.aoa.org/healthy-eyes/eye-and-vision-conditions/c...
- tamrix 4y agoMy parents would call it square eyes lol
- AndrewDucker 4y agoTiredness of the eye muscles after many hours forcing the focus to a short distance.
- rnd420_69 4y agohave you verified that it actually gets better and that you're not just getting used to it? I used to think the same thing when I just tried not wearing glasses for a while. I could swear that it was awful at first but over time my no-glases eyesight improved tremendously. I then did a really simple distance reading test and it was obvious that it didn't improve at all and the effect was imagined.
- 0dayz 4y agoThis has me perplexed, if it has to do with sunlight, wouldn't then Nordic countries have a very high level of shortsightedness?
- kwhitefoot 4y agoOutdoor activities are very common in Norway winter and summer. The skies are often quite clear too. And, at least where I live, kindergartens have the children playing outside most of the time, summer and winter, rain or shine. My impression is that short-sightedness is in fact rarer in Norway than in the UK but it's not something I actually have statistics for. I fear that it might be changing now as so many children, boys in particular, spend so much time using computers.
- mattlondon 4y agoI wonder if indoor lighting at the appropriate temperature would help prevent this? In the UK we don't get a lot of sunlight in the winter months. It would be nice to know that we can turn on a "sun lamp" or whatever for homework time to help alleviate the issues.
- dheera 4y agoIs it really an issue though? My glasses have saved me from injuries to the eye multiple times by flying objects, I'm actually thankful I have them.
- eastbound 4y ago> In the UK we don't get a lot of sunlight in the winter months Thus, are more people nearsighted in UK than in the South of France?
- stevebmark 4y agoNope! Myopia isn’t related to natural light. It’s the eye growing in response to over focusing in peripheral vision.
- silisili 4y agoI feel like this has always been a rather obvious thing...for at least what nearly a century or more? The whole trope of glasses are for nerds. Kids who spend time reading a ton are nearsighted. I understood this in elementary school, when the only kids with glasses were the smart ones. (I hated reading, and did not wear glasses, so was not a 'smart one'). I became nearsighted not long after getting a home computer, for similar reasons. My father, an avid farmer and naturist, is farsighted. It seems pretty obvious your eyes adjust to whatever you spend all day looking at. That all said, is it bad? Mine was cured with a rather cheap PRK procedure...and I sure wouldn't give up all I've learned for perfect natural eyesight.
- Al-Khwarizmi 4y agoIt was kind of common knowledge that something related to being a nerd was causing myopia, but I'd say most people assumed that the culprits were things like reading and screens, rather than being indoors. Hindsight is 20/20.
- silisili 4y agoI replied elsewhere...I disagree that light type is the culprit. If so, why do people in areas without electricity become myopic? That strongly feels like correlation rather than causation at its finest. My brother and I were kids with mostly similar habits. We spent a lot playing outside, but he loved reading his Goosebump books, while I mainly watched TV at a distance. He needed glasses as a kid, and I didn't until we got a computer in my teen years. It completely feels like it's a focusing distance issue.
- just-tom 4y agoAs I suggested in the past, it would be helpful to add [PAYWALL] before or after titles for links that have a paywall.
- mdp2021 4y agoWell, it's The Economist, very evident in the title line (it would be news if they removed the protection). And, incidentally but importantly, it uses a "payfence", not really a paywall.
- eastbound 4y agoWhy can we have 2-lense glasses that move the focus to infinity? ELI5: In opticals, “rays” coming from a near object (=mobile phone) are angled, while rays coming from afar (=end of a landscape) are parallel. The job of pupils is to bend the rays from the focal point ahead to the focal point on the receptors in the eye. The eye is a rest when looking afar, because rays come parallel, and thus there isn’t much to do. The eye is strained when trying to focus one something closer. I’ve always wondered why we all had that UV filter on screens and never took care of making the rays from the computer screen parallel, using a lense.
- occamrazor 4y agoAssuming that it’s technically practical, the results would be very unsettling: the phone screen would look like a window with the content “behind “ the window, very far away.
- saurik 4y agoI doubt that effect would be very strong as the effect of a magic eye massively dominates any feeling we have to notice that our eyes aren't having to do as much of whatever you'd call this lensing work.
- eastbound 4y ago…But geometric aberrations might be annoying: The image is perfect in the center but blurry/rainbowed 10° from the center, etc.
- geeB 4y agoYou can do that cheaply by picking up a pair of reading glasses, or glasses with lower power if you are already nearsighted. Roughly, infinity will be at 1/diopters in meters, so +0.5 glasses will make 2m away at infinity, +1.0 at 1m, and so on, and similarly if you are at -3, -2.5 will make 2m infinity, etc. It's not exact because they are not thin lenses and there is a separation between lens and eye, but it should be pretty close. I've been using one less diopter correction for a while most of the time, with an additional pair of glasses with the full prescription for driving. Not sure if it does anything or my nearsightedness just naturally stopped progressing though, but since it's working and not bothering me I have no interest in finding out.
- ldx1024 4y agoIt may just be a pet peeve, but it rankles me a bit when the term "epidemic" is used to describe widespread conditions that are not communicable/infectuous. Looking at the dictionary it appears the usage here is legitimate, but my guess would be that it is a misuse that has become accepted, like using the term "begging the question" to mean suggesting the question.
- simonh 4y agoAll novel linguistic constructs are 'misuses' in some sense or another that have become accepted. In this case that's not so though, the etymology is from the Greek '(upon|near|against) the people, and does not necessarily refer only to disease.
- Asraelite 4y agoEtymology in interesting, but has almost zero relevance in determining how acceptable a use of a word is.
- simonh 4y agoThat's precisely the point of the first line of my comment.
- Asraelite 4y agoOh sorry, I misinterpreted.
- mdp2021 4y agoYou should probably leave it to the Academies, given that others take the opposite general stance. What the server /accepts/ is left to configuration (some still recommend, "Strict in formulating the output, loose in interpreting the input"). What is "legitimate" is another matter, and will have to consider the term's curriculum, also because other proposals are faulty (e.g. conventionalism: "/whose/ convention?").
- 4y ago
- chasil 4y agoAllow me to say this, emphatticaly no! "Governments are well placed to solve such collective-action problems..."
- atq2119 4y agoWho would you say is in a better position?
- kamaal 4y agoPretty sure in the recent times COVID has worsened this. I do exercise often these days. But its nothing like the morning workout, lunch time socialising, and tea time walks with colleagues before COVID. These days apart from the workout in the morning I get no outdoor activity, its just staring at every decreasing(sizes of) screens. I'm showing early symptoms of Shortsightedness. Several other colleagues tell me the same, there's also additional problem of people getting obese staying at home. Though schools have opened. Last two years were equally worse for kids, no play, classes on smartphones and laptops. Humans have not evolved to live like this.
- ekianjo 4y ago
- andrepd 4y agoAccording to the dictionary this is a valid use of the word 'epidemic'. It's also probably the best word to convey what is happening to a general audience.
- ekianjo 4y ago> According to the dictionary this is a valid use of the word 'epidemic'. That's circular logic because dictionaries keep changing their definition to match what ignorant people use.
- drekipus 4y agoNot even dictionaries are safe from judgement
- mdp2021 4y agoEtymological dictionaries are immune to that problem. https://www.etymonline.com/word/epidemic https://www.etymonline.com/word/epidemic -- "epi-dēmos", "among the people". If you hold close what the term says, and regard the use as a derivation, you develop an aware, rooted terminology. But then, you'd lose the grounds to embrace a conventional derivation as what the term means - which is what you just condemned.
- andrepd 4y ago>definition matches what people use That is indeed how this "language" thing works.
- danschuller 4y agoThis is a common figurative use of the word. The etymology comes from the Greek meaning "upon/on people", so nothing in the root connects the meaning to how something develops or spreads.
- mikewarot 4y agoPet peeve about language use: I thought it was obvious that short-sightedness (Exclusively Short term thinking) is an epidemic, nobody on Wall Street can see past the next Quarter's numbers. I don't need the economist to point that out. Nearsightedness is what this article is about... a completely different thing. I've dealt with that my entire life... and just went through the knock-on effect of retina detachment, and surgery to correct the same. Having a bubble of C3F8 gas in your one good eye is pretty damned effective at taking you out of commission for about 4 months. Looking down hurts! I hope to be up and about, and able to drive again by the start of September, once the bubble has gone, my eye has stabilized, the surgeon has made a final check, and finally after I get new glasses. I strongly suspect the amount of light outdoors is NOT really the issue. If you're always focused on things close at hand (as the above mentioned folks on wall street), you never allow the eyes to focus on the far horizon for an appreciable fraction of the time. I'm surprised to learn that there's no consensus on how the eye actually focuses on objects at various distances[1]. It is also well know that the smaller an iris in a camera (or eye), the larger the range of distances that appear in focus. It seems reasonable to me that if you spend your time looking at only nearby objects (like above mentioned Wall Street residents), you'll lose the ability to see things further out that might be coming to get you. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accommodation_(eye) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accommodation_(eye)
- msk-lywenn 4y agoI have very bad eyesight too. May I ask what is your correction? (Not sure it’s the proper word in English, but the thing measured in dioptres?)
- tominous 4y agoAlmost all children are born hypermetropic (far-sighted). The growth of the eyeball is calibrated by the amount of defocus (blur) experienced. More defocus, more growth, which reduces hypermetropia. My hypothesis is that less sunlight means wider pupils and more defocus (contrast to a pinhole camera), so more eye growth. Even with perfect eyesight, there's a 2-diopter difference between focussing blue light and red light due to chromatic aberration. Only narrow pupils can reduce this blur in white light. I'm also curious whether older TVs with big blurry pixels (or low res images upscaled and smeared onto newer screens) trigger the same mechanism. These days I certainly feel physically uncomfortable looking at media like that, like my eyes aren't focussing quite right. The other problem is that once eyes have grown too long and are myopic (near-sighted) they experience even more defocus and grow more. See for example [1] which discusses how under-correction of myopia accelerates progression. [1] https://reviewofmm.com/does-the-undercorrection-of-myopia-inhibit-myopia-progression/ https://reviewofmm.com/does-the-undercorrection-of-myopia-in...
- jeffreyrogers 4y agoSomething like this is beginning to be accepted. At least that's the impression I got from the eye doctor when I had PRK surgery. FWIW I had 20/15 vision until starting college and consequently being indoors in the dark much more often (staying up late to program).
- Hellicio 4y agoMine is genetic. I have very similiar values than my mother. So i'mnot sure if / how your theory is correct or not. Also there are a lot of normal people in the world who live outside and also don't have perfect eye sight at all. This goes back a long time. Can you also elaborate on your 2 diopter difference between red and blue light? For one i find that number very very big but i'm very good in seeing full color without any chromatic aberration. The effect of your theory would need to be less relevant than other factors.
- tominous 4y agoNot denying that there are many ways in which development can go wrong, whether that's genetic or the environment. What I'm responding to is the sudden change seen in many populations as per the article. Re: the chromatic aberration spread, see e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3716229/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3716229/ They measured 1.82 diopters between 420nm and 660nm. Visible light is a bit wider, 380nm to 720nm, so 2 diopters is about right. You easily can see this in a dark data centre. If your vision is perfectly corrected (which normally means perfect for red-green light) you won't be able to focus on a blue LED unless you are about 50cm away.
- mrkramer 4y agoI usually don't agree with The Economist but I agree with them on this one, people spend too much time indoor and that's why there is an epidemic of shortsightedness. I would actually call it pandemic because it is affecting all developed countries because majority of their workforce works indoor and then goes home or to the gym....again indoor environment.
- teknopaul 4y agoI heard it said that it's lack of UV that does the damage, glass filters out UV. Sounds like it might be a resolvable problem without having kids take class outdoor.
- unbad505 4y agoNot a lack of Ultra Violet light, but a lack of Violet light, which also needs to be quite bright in order to have a proper effect. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8179197/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8179197/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5233810/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5233810/
- sandstrom 4y agoFor several decades it has been known that myopia (nearsightedness) and intelligence are correlated[1][2]. Initially it was speculated that reading caused nearsightedness, and through that higher intelligence. There is probably some truth to that. But with modern DNA sequencing techniques researches has found genes that seem to affect both[3][4]. The hypothesis is that one (or a set of) genes affects both eye size growth (myopia is often caused by the eye being "too long") and neocortical size (associated with intelligence). Although this probably won't surprise anyone in this research field, I recently read about it -- with my non-nearsighted eyes :) -- and found it interesting. So I wanted to share, since it's somewhat related to this topic. [1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaophthalmology/article-abstract/636970 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaophthalmology/article-a... [2] https://europepmc.org/article/med/2904062 https://europepmc.org/article/med/2904062 [3] https://www.nature.com/articles/srep45977 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep45977 [4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19127804/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19127804/
- bstar77 4y agoAnd here I am thinking my perfect eyesight at 45 is a good thing :(
- viktoracoric 4y ago
- EnKopVand 4y agoThe beauty of science is that you don’t have to “believe” in it.
- hk1337 4y agoThe different usage of words and their meanings in English is interesting and makes me think this weird miscommunication is why we have so many arguments. In my everyday, the article would be referring to nearsightedness, short sighted would be when someone doesn’t think through all the possible things, lacking foresight. By definition it’s both but in every day use it’s not.
- ultra_nick 4y agoHomographs are a pain for natural language processing. Homophones are a pain for us bad spellers.
- zymhan 4y agoYeah, given that this is an Economist article, I assumed they meant "lack of foresight", since they often write similar titles
- wrycoder 4y agoThat's the article I was expecting, also. Lack of foresight these days is a serious problem - with the mis-education current in the US, the younger cohorts are losing the historical perspective developed so painfully over the last four thousand years. What to do is not so important as what not to do.
- martyvis 4y agoIn everyday use in this part of the world you never hear the word near-sighted. In Australia and I think a lot of other British English countries, short-sighted is the plain English term for myopic. (But the thing is most of us know that the US uses the other term)
- wiether 4y agoI'm in the same boat; I was expecting to read an article about managers/CEOs taking short-sighted decisions. To be noted, I'm French, English is not my native language so when I realized my mistake I thought that was because in the case of this title it was obvious that it is about eyes but I just didn't knew how to catch the clues.
- goldenkey 4y agoMost cases of myopia (nearsightness), involving progressively worsening vision, are largely due to inaccurate lens prescriptions and bad habits. An optometrist or optician will have you sit with your head in the phoropter asking "better/worse" while flipping lenses - pretty much a binary search type of approach. But this is often done hastily and results in inaccurate prescriptions. ----------- Unfortunately, inaccurate scripts are often inflicted upon children which as I will describe later, compounds into worsening vision over time, with the opticians/optometrists prescribing higher and higher power lenses that are only solving an issue that is created by the previous history of inaccuracy! Telltale signs of inaccurate scripts include: - minor corrections Eyes are not static objects and vision actually does vary from month to month, day to day, lighting conditions, blood pressure, etc. If a correction is minor, it's almost always unecessary and harmful. - slightly different prescriptions for left (OS) and right (OR) eyes. 99.9% of folks have equivalent vision in both eyes. Like I said above, if a difference is minor, a correction would almost always be harmful. - minor cylinder corrections (astigmatism.) Astigmatism is extremely rare and when it does occur it's almost never minor. These corrections are especially egregious as they cause distortion compensation. ----------- So why do eye professionals commit these cardinal acts of eye destruction upon their patients? Well we already discussed hastyness but that is clearly a vice that is going to result in bad outcomes in any profession. What else? Well, eye professionals are taught to seek out as perfectly sharp an image as possible, and then back off the power a bit to reduce the possibility of eyestrain, headache, and dizziness. Some professionals don't even back off the power though.. In order to accomplish this task of perfect sharp vision, they add all of these minor corrections. When these ill-fitting lenses are worn for months on end, the body has a somatic response. The eyeballs elongate, which pushes the focal plane back, causing further myopia. [1] The patient goes back to the eye doctor and now receives an even more incorrect script based on the transient state their eyes are in, induced by a cascading patterned history of harmful scripts. In the worst case, the eye doctor recommends laser eye surgery which shaves the corneal lens of your eye into an artificial lens. Essentially, they carve your current harmful prescription straight into your eyeball. And then guess what happens? The eyeball shortens and often, the patients vision becomes progressively worse again. It can take months, but it does happen. [2] And now the fix that they recommend? More laser eye surgery. It's barbaric. So please, do not get eye surgery before trying what I recommend below. Surgery on the cornea is advertised as non invasive but it can cause life long issues such as chronic dry eye. Please try to assess whether your vision is actually bad, or just a transient state due to a long history of bad prescriptions and poor habits. ---------- How do you break the cycle and restore your vision? 1) First, look at your current script. How asymmetric is it? How small are the cylinder values, if any? Lower the scripts power and make the prescription symmetric. Remove the minor cylinder values. So for example, if you had -3.6 and -3.4 with some small astigmatism corrections, just ask for a script for -3.4 SPH in both eyes. 2) Make sure the pupillary distance is correct - eye professionals are notorious for fucking this up because the PD needs be to custom set for the frame the lenses will be going in, otherwise you'll have lenses with a focal center that is not aligned with the center of your eyeball. This causes distortion and uneven focus, causing eye strain and worsening vision. 3) Aspheric lenses - buy good lenses like Seiko double aspherics - just like cinema or photo lenses cost a lot of money because they reduce abberation and edge distortion, your eyes benefit from the same technology. Bottom dollar spherical lenses are okay, but strain is not healthy for eyes, and a good $300 set of Seiko transition lenses with coatings can last 10+ years. It's worth your eye health. 4) Have multiple pairs of spectacles. Use the weakest usable one (or no specs) depending on the task you are doing. For instance, I'm on my phone in bed, so I am not using any glasses. This will improve your vision over time. You can slowly reduce the power of your scripts if you care about it. I went from -4.75 to -3.5 and I'm happy with what I'm at, so I don't spend any effort trying to lower any further. But if you have the money, the time, and the will, you can get to -1.X territory through judicious use of a set of activity appropriate lenses. Lastly, buy your own frame, buy your own pupilary distance tools, buy your own trial lens kit and trial frame like the Oculus UB6. Take time and figure out the right prescription for yourself without it being rushed. Test it and have it remade if the center of focus of the lenses is not at the center of your eyes. PD is integral! ------------- An eye professional who cares and understands these things CAN help and even properly measure these values but they are rare. Sometimes if you want something done right, you kind of have to do it yourself. Or at the very least, guide or give your demands. After all, you are the paying customer. Hope this helps others break the cycle of worsening vision. If anyone has any question, feel free to reach out. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470669/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470669/ [2] https://www.webmd.com/eye-health/news/20030410/some-patients-need-second-lasik-surgery https://www.webmd.com/eye-health/news/20030410/some-patients...
- oblak 4y agoWhile I am all for the idea that we need to have more sunlight indoors, I am not at all convinced that's the cause for the condition. TV watching wasn't big when I was a kid, and I didn't have the patience for reading, yet I've got it. So yeah. I am sure prolonged focusing contributes a lot but not sure it's the main cause.
- FollowingTheDao 4y agoIt is always nature and nurture. You have have been more prone to being near sighted because of your genetics. https://www.revieweducationgroup.com/ce/how-environment-and-genetics-give-rise-to-myopia https://www.revieweducationgroup.com/ce/how-environment-and-...
- FollowingTheDao 4y agoIs dopamine playing a role? Like social media use on top of less sunlight? Some of the genetics linked to myopia involve dopamine: https://www.revieweducationgroup.com/ce/how-environment-and-genetics-give-rise-to-myopia https://www.revieweducationgroup.com/ce/how-environment-and-... "Some of the loci identified include those involved in dopamine and light processing. These genetic findings provide further support for mechanisms of myopia development involving light exposure, defocus and contrast. Despite these important findings informing potential genetic locations and mechanisms of myopia development, these studies have identified less than 5% of the variation in refractive error due to genetic variants.42 Clearly, the dramatic rise in myopia cannot be due to genetics alone, but is likely due to a combination of both genetic susceptibility and increased environmental triggers."
- cityzen 4y ago
- geoffmanning 4y agoI read the title and immediately agreed, but i had misinterpreted "short-sightedness" as the inability to consider the long-term effects of our choices and habits, at least to the effect of making positive changes, rather than the ocular deficiency.
- tharne 4y ago> I read the title and immediately agreed, but i had misinterpreted "short-sightedness" as the inability to consider the long-term effects of our choices and habits I had the exact same reaction, and was genuinely surprised when I clicked through.
- mathgeek 4y agoFirst I have ever encountered the term used in this context. Have always understood it to be near-sightedness, but that may just be cultural.
- jacobolus 4y agoShort-sighted, near-sighted, and myopic mean the same thing. Both short-sighted and myopic are often used figuratively (to mean acting on short-term interests without considering long-term effects) while near-sighted seldom is.
- xiamx 4y agoSame. And opening the page and seeing that it talks about myopia is a surprise
- productk 4y agoThe same, only reason I clicked the link.
- qiskit 4y ago
- DharmaPolice 4y ago
- spiffytech 4y agoIn my early teens I had 20/15 vision. By the time I went to college I was wearing glasses for nearsightedness. I'm pretty sure it's because I got interested in computers, and started spending all day staring 3ft ahead instead of glancing around outdoors. Some friends in my computer science program passed around each other's glasses and found we all had nearly the same prescription. That didn't seem like a coincidence.
- 300bps 4y agoI got my first computer at 10, was 20/40 vision at 16 and am probably around 20/80 right not. Honestly I'm glad that I am now that I'm in my 40s. Without glasses or contacts, I can read something right up against my nose. Makes it so much easier to work on electronics and other small items - I just take my glasses off and I see up close perfectly well.
- plonk 4y agoI spent 10 hours a day on computers when I wasn't at school during middle school. Started at the end of primary school and continued until now. I pass the letter-reading tests at the GP when I'm not too tired, so I think I have pretty good vision. Maybe that's because I didn't always have a computer nearby and had to spend time outside too as a kid.
- rootusrootus 4y agoThat may just be lucky coincidence. I've been a computer nerd spending way too many hours in front of my computer since I was a teen. Last eye exam I had was a few years back when I turned 45. 20/20 in one eye, but after I made a remark about having been 20/15 when younger, the tech said "let's try!" and I could still do it. Barely. In only one eye now. But still, after all these years. But really it's presbyopia that's bothered me. I'm glad my distance vision is great, but the loss of close-up focus is massively inconvenient. Reading glasses make me want to throw up within a matter of minutes. Not sure what my long term plan is aside from suffer.
- moron4hire 4y agoUse a large screen TV as your computer monitor, placed far away from you.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bookofjoe 4y agohttps://archive.ph/ZuYlY https://archive.ph/ZuYlY
- jedberg 4y agoWhen I was a kid, we had a "no TV when the sun is up" rule. That included computer screens, which were literally TVs when I was a kid. Of course I violated that rule when my parents weren't looking, but for the most part I spent a lot of time playing outside, especially in summer. This is of course anecdotal, but I'm 45 and still don't need glasses. I'm trying to do the same with my kids, but sometimes it's just too easy to hand them an iPad when I want to get something done....
- lisper 4y agoWhen I was a kid we didn't have a computer. Home computers didn't exist until I was in my teens. We had one 12-inch black-and-white TV that received four channels when the rabbit ears were set up properly. I spent a lot of time outdoors. This is of course anecdotal, but I have needed glasses since before fifth grade. (I got my first pair of glasses in fifth grade, but in retrospect it was clear that I needed them much earlier. I can still vividly remember the first I ever tried on my new glasses and being astounded at the level of visual detail that existed in the world. Stars! Leaves on trees! Wow! I had no idea.)
- wrycoder 4y agoWhen I was a kid, we didn't have TV, and computers had just been invented. But, I read a lot, often in bed at close distance, and I was astigmatic and near-sighted when I was young. Now, I'm mostly just astigmatic and presbyoptic.
- carapace 4y agoEverything in nature is fractal-shaped, while most things in our artificial environments are made of flat surfaces. If you think of light as a kind of "food" for the eyes, we are effectively eating junk food all day every day.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- stakkur 4y ago>Sedentary, white-collar jobs are less arduous (and less lethal) than manual work. They also promote obesity and heart disease. I'm always baffled by the dismissive wave of the "activity level causes obesity and heart disease" trope--because it's mostly wrong. The first world diet is the primary cause of obesity and heart disease, and it's well-proven. Starch and sugar, processed foods, a diet primarily consisting of carbohydrates. Diet is the driver, not activity level.
- seltzered_ 4y agoSee also https://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-boom-1.17120 https://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-boom-1.17120 (2015)
- Aulig 4y agoHonestly, myopia is not complicated (Kepler pretty much had it right in 1604 already). There's countless studies showing that axial length (eyeball length) changes in both directions, where elongation increases myopia. How do you change it? You get defocus (blur) which makes the eye adjust in the direction to reduce the blur. Practically: use weaker (around 1.5 diopters) or no glasses during close-up work (reading, computer work, smartphones) and your regular or .25D weaker glasses for distance vision. Always use your full strength glasses for driving and safety critical activities. You can expect around a .75D decrease in myopia per year. Personally, I started with around -5.5D and am now (1.5 years later) at -2.5D. Obviously I didn't come up with this myself, there's a huge group over at https://endmyopia.org https://endmyopia.org Don't get put off by the sarcastic tone of the website. Look into the studies regarding axial length, pseudomyopia and lens induced myopia if you'd like. You can find plenty of studies linked as well as the practical steps on endmyopia. Note: You don't have to buy the guy's courses, just read his blog and free email guide.
- planarhobbit 4y agoHard to believe after all these years EndMyopia is not only being promoted on HN, but is consistently one of the most upvoted things on the subject. I figured the pros here would slice and dice and find issues with the research and recommendations and explain in depth why it’s snake oil (if it is), but it’s been a fairly forgiving topic.
- alar44 4y agoIt's bullshit because there are a ton of reasons why you would need corrective vision. This will work for a small subset but for most will not. And for those who it does help, they'll still need glasses. It's pointless.
- Aulig 4y agoIt's more likely that it works for a large majority. If you were born myopic or had an accident or something similar, yea it most likely wont work for you. But most myopes do not fall in those categories. I'm very open to hearing your arguments backing up your statement though.
- underwater 4y agoMy child is following in my footsteps and has been prescribed glasses for nearsightedness. Her optometrist told us she should be watching TV rather than reading books. This was both surprising and upsetting, especially since she loves reading. This lead me on an interesting deep dive into existing research. What surprised me were the massive gaps in understanding. Scientist have at best established correlation between close up work and nearsightedness, and a negative correlation with spending time outside. The actual mechanism in play is unknown, for example the theories about sunlight are still untested. The specific types of close up work that cause issues is unknown. Some scientists have proposed that it's the contrast between white pages and black text that actually causes issues with reading. My conclusion was that anyone who confidently asserts that $x causes nearsightedness is wrong (this thread is a case in point).
- Projectiboga 4y agoSunlight onbthe retina helps form Serotonin. Has to be direct or through eyelids, not through any glass. A doctor told me a leading theory about how outside time helps is by shifting focus from faraway to close and back. So look at things up at top of buildings or upper canopy of trees then into some nearby detail back and forth my. It's a kind of excersize for eye focus. My son's eyes have held close to 20/20 into High School. We have good views for this from our apartment. I've taught him to check cornices and close details as he walks to and from school.
- nealabq 4y agoIn my nearsighted family (parents, 2 kids) we've concluded that reading printed-pages makes you get nearsighted faster than reading words on a computer screen. This seems to work for us. Don't know about anyone else. I'm very nearsighted (-14 diopters), but I grew up reading books on paper.
- underwater 4y agoThis comment is exactly what I'm talking about. Studies involving hundreds of individuals is struggling to get that kind of clarity around correlations. The observations you've made with a handful of people are anecdotes, not controlled data.
- mrbonner 4y agoI paid nearly $1500 for my kid myopia treatment plan: specialized drop, checkin every 2 months. Nothing helps. They now recommend I do contacts for my 9 year old and I kindly say hell no. I think this is scammy at best.
- atlgator 4y agoRead the headline and thought the article would be about something different. How ironic.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kenbolton 4y agoI wore glasses for a few years in high school because I had trouble seeing the blackboard from anywhere but the front row. I started hiking and kayaking every day, especially in places where I could see for many miles. I also migrated from CRT to LCD to LED screens, and more recently to e-ink devices when possible. Very fine print in a dark space is hard to read, but I can read a moving US license plate from six blocks away. Yesterday I recognized a friend a mile and a half away by their paddle-stroke. I am able to differentiate a bald eagle from an osprey at two miles based on the shape of the wings, and see a fish in talons at about a mile. (Friday I observed an osprey dive, catch a fish, head towards the nest, then get chased for thirty minutes by a bald eagle. Nasty, opportunistic birds, bald eagles. I get why Benjamin Franklin held them in such contempt. I lost the pair when they went behind a mountain about three miles away.) In speaking with ophthalmologists, there is wide support for my hypothesis that the near-daily outdoor activity and frequent change of focal distance–from a nautical chart on my foredeck to the bow wave of a tanker eight miles out–has preserved and likely improved my vision. The data: 20/20 in primary school, 20/23 in high school, 20/20 during my higher education, and 20/13 and improving as I approach retirement. A fun trick is to describe an approaching vessel before others have seen it.
- shadowtree 4y agoYou're getting far-sighted as you're getting older.
- kenbolton 4y agoI call it "wisdom". :-)
- kenbolton 4y agoMore seriously, though, I am not far-sighted. I do not need corrective lenses to read books, newsprint, magazines, or labels at the grocery store despite the possible genetic predisposition baed on the need for reading glasses by my parents and siblings. I often have to read very fine details on nautical charts, sometimes in a seaway, sometimes at night with the use of a headlamp. Exhaustion definitely changes my eyesight. I'm coming off of two days of kayaking and camping with high school kids followed by an intensive four hour lesson teaching rescues. (Imagine ~3600 boat-poses per hour, then subtract a few hundred and replace them with pulling swamped boats out of the water and across my lap to empty them, climbing out of the water and into the boat to demonstrate a dozen types of self-rescue.) I tried to read last night but my eyes could not focus; I vaguely remember making my way toward bed but woke up twelve hours later downstairs on the floor.
- drited 4y agoI'm hopeful that the shift to VR from PC gaming and perhaps also office productivity will help with myopia. Might seem counter-intuitive given the VR lens is next to the eye but focus in VR is in the distance. Even productivity in VR is usually done on huge screens further away from the user than traditions pc screens.
- 1ark 4y agoWearing contact lenses with VR is a huge difference compared to without. So I think there is some potential in what you are saying. There could even be room for eye training apps etc.
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoSeeing this is the economist, I thought they meant shortsightedness of our business and industry leaders. Was a bit dissapointed that instead of much needed self-reflection, the topic is far more pedestrian.
- ComradePhil 4y agoIt is caused by mass literacy (reading) and now mass-cellphone use.
- amarant 4y agoFrom the headline I really thought this article was about the other shortsightedness, which is perhaps better described as a pandemic by now. Surprised to see it was actually by eyesight