Are you reading this on your phone? If so, you might want to consider just how close you’re holding it to your face. Spending too much time focusing on objects that are very close up, like phones, screens or even paperbacks, is detrimental to eyes, explains optician Emma Evans.
In adults, it can cause a modern malaise dubbed ‘digital eye strain’ or DES, characterised by dry eyes, itching, foreign body sensation, watering, blurring of vision and headache. The unlucky may also experience a stiff neck, general fatigue, headache and backache.
‘The impact is even worse in children,’ says Emma. ‘Their developing eyes are at risk of developing myopia, or shortsightedness.’ Just last month, the journal JAMA Network Open published a meta-analysis of 45 studies – including a mammoth 335,000 participants with an average age of 9 – finding that a mere one-hour daily increase in screen time could raise their risk of developing shortsightedness by 21%
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The problem is particularly acute for younger children. ‘The rate of progression reduces with age, so if a kid becomes shortsighted at five, they’re much more at risk of progressing to a higher prescription than if they’d become myopic at 14,’ says optician Emma.
Last year, another study, published in the British Journal Of Ophthalmology, revealed that shortsightedness among children and teens tripled between 1990 and 2023 – rising to 36% worldwide. Meanwhile, some projections suggest that by 2050, nearly one-half of the world’s population will be shortsighted.
That shortsightedness poses its own risks, explains Emma. Myopia is linked to conditions including the vision-threatening complication myopic maculopathy, retinal detachment, and glaucoma. So what can you do?
Emma recommends three, simple steps to protect children’s eyes from the impact of screens: ‘First: get kids outdoors for at least two hours a day, whatever the weather.’ Studies have shown that increased sunlight decreases myopia progression and being outdoors naturally encourages children to look at objects at varying distances, from a close-up football to distant trees (and ice cream vans).
When they’re ogling at screens, encourage them to take regular breaks, she suggests, and lastly: ‘Hold any screens (or any reading material, in fact) at arm’s length rather than under their nose. Think about the arm holding the phone or tablet being in an L shape, not a V shape.’
While less urgent, the same advice is helpful for adults, too, Emma suggests. The UK Health and Safety Executive recommends that workplace screens should be about an arm’s length away from you. Meanwhile, a 2022 comprehensive review of digital eye strain in adults found that holding a phone or tablet at a distance of less than 20cm was associated with greater risk (as was having a dimmer screen display and having glare or reflection on your screen).
Even your phone agrees. Newer iPhones come with a built-in feature to help you police this better distance-keeping. The Screen Distance feature uses your camera to detect when you hold the phone closer than 12 inches for an extended period, and encourages you to move it further away. One last piece of advice? Emma also recommends the 20-20-20 rule: ‘Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds.’ Eyes on the prize.
