Neckaches, backaches, red eyes, dry eyes, headaches, migraines, even blurry or double vision. Are your eyes crying out for help?
Probably. According to a recent report put out by the Vision Council, nearly 70 percent of U.S. adults are experiencing digital eye strain due to electronic devices.
“We hardly watch TV… everything’s on the computer, everything’s on our phones, the social media. It’s killing our eyes,” said Natalie Castellano.
Castellano should know. Her work has her on the computer almost all day. At 29, she started experiencing debilitating eye strain two years ago.
“Headaches, the computer would start getting blurry in and out. Really tired at the end of the day, migraines,” explained Castellano.
Fortunately, Castellano happened to work at Gould Vision on Miami Beach, where Dr. Adina Gould diagnosed her with digital eye strain.
“We have six muscles here and six here (pointing to the area around the eyes) and you feel a lot of pain around the eyes, behind the eyes, it can even radiate down the neck from this strain of our muscles turning in,” explained Gould. “If you can imagine being on a thigh master all day and pulling in your thigh muscles … you’d be pretty sore in the morning. That’s happening to our eyes.”
Eye problems and diseases are happening at startlingly younger ages.
“I’m wearing lenses normally patients would start wearing in their 40s,” says Castellano.
Ed Greene is CEO of the Vision Council. “You know the other thing that we don’t really think about is we aren’t used to looking at tiny dots all day long. That’s another thing, everything we’re looking at is pixels.”
And there’s more bad news for digital device addicts, it’s called High Energy Visible Light.
“And it’s an area of blue light that has through studies, shown to cause and contribute to such things as age related macular degeneration,” said Michael Vitale, an optician with the Vision Council.
Vitale said that basically, if you are using electronic devices for more than 2 hours a day… you need to be aware of what is now being called “eyegonomics” and use the 20/20/20 rule. Every 20-minutes, take a 20-second break and look at something 20-feet away. Other tips to reduce digital eye strain:
- Enlarge your computer and cell phone text.
- Remember to blink every 10 seconds.
- Position desktop screens at arm’s length without any tilt and use anti-glare protectors on screens.
“We can’t get by without technology. So due to the technology, we really need to start wearing computer glasses,” said Gould.
Digital eye strain is now the leading cause of work environment complaints. If you begin to experience eye strain symptoms, the first thing you need to do is see an eye doctor so he or she can help you determine the proper eyewear that will help relax your eyes.
Source: CBS – Miami
