05/01/2025
This is great information on protecting your children’s and your grandchildren‘s eyes. Come see me for Blue blocking eyewear for kids 🤓
Research has established an association between time children spend on digital devices and myopia. Children are beginning to spend more time on digital screens at an early age. Many two year olds spend up to two hours per day viewing screens according to a 2017 study. There is a correlation between the amount of screen time and the onset and progression of myopia. Is there a safe threshold for screen time? A team of researchers in Korea analyzed articles from peer reviewed journals to evaluate the association of time spent on digital screens with myopia risk that included data from countries outside of Asia. The results may surprise you. They analyzed 45 studies with.335,524 participants aged 19 years and older compared with those aged 2 to 7 or 8 to 18 years. screen time ranged from 1 to 4 hours daily for phones tablets, game, consoles, computer, computers, and television. The screen time versus myopic response curve showed myopic risk increasing significantly between one to four hours of daily screen time and then raising more gradually after four hours. In fact, a daily one hour increment in digital screen time was associated with 21% higher odds of myopia. these results indicate a potential safety threshold of less than one hour per day of exposure with an increase in risk up to four hours. They found no clear connection with myopia for screen use less than one hour per day. What’s more, for children who were already myopic an additional hour of screen time was associated with 54% increased risk of becoming more myopic, and the odds for myopia were significantly higher when devices were analyzed in combination. The research researchers acknowledged that many factors contribute to myopia, including a combination of genetic environmental and lifestyle factors screen time being one. Time outdoors has been established as reducing the risk of myopia, but because screen time use predominantly occurs indoors, the resulting reduction in exposure to the protective benefits of outdoor environments may contribute to increasing the incidence of myopia. We can presume that the combination of indoor time and screen use significantly raises the risk.
