Life in quarantine can be tough on the eyes. Between working from home, attending virtual school, shopping online and trying to stay sane with streaming and video games, New Yorker's are staring at computers and devices more than ever and its leading to a condition known as "DIGITAL EYE STRAIN".
Digital Eye Strain is a condition that is basically caused by interaction with technology. The symptoms the patient begins to experience are red eyes, dry eyes, headaches, eye fatigue, and disruption to normal sleep patterns. Specifically, the reason this happens is that we’re moving our working distance closer. Meaning, all of the work we do on computers, laptop, or any up-close reading for long stretches of time.
That creates a lot of demand on our focusing muscles in our eyes, and like any muscle, its going to fatigue. When your eye muscles do fatigue it causes headaches and general distress to the visual system. When concentrating on anything up close your blink rate goes down causing your eyes to dry out and become irritated and red by the end of the day.
One of the most interesting facets of this, is the blue light emitted by the displays on all of these digital devices disrupts the normal melatonin production in the brain. So it’s important for parents to monitor their kids usage of these devices, especially towards the end of the night.
According to the UC Davis School of Medicine, continued exposure to blue light over time could damage retinal cells and cause vision problems such as age-related macular degeneration. It can also contribute to cataracts, eye cancer and growths on the clear covering over the white part of the eye.
