Late-Night Screen Scrolling: How Social Media Use Damages Your Eyes and Ways to Protect Vision

Browsing the screen and browsing the phone until late at night is the norm in many people’s lives. A new Indian study published in the Swiss Journal of Eye Movement Research found that when you use a smartphone for 1 hour, the frequency of blinking decreases, which in turn causes eye fatigue. Among a wide range of mobile phone operations, scrolling through social media hurts the eye the most.

Browsing social media hurts the most

To understand better the visual impact of long-term use of a smartphone, an Indian institute of science and technology has recruited 30 young participants to conduct in-depth research on it. The team has real-time measurements of eye fatigue of the participants such as blink frequency, blink interval, pupil diameter through a newly developed portable eye monitoring system with infrared cameras.

During the experiment, the participants were asked to sit in non-adjustable office chairs, keep a fixed distance from their mobile phones and read e-books, watch videos or swipe social media for 1 hour each. The results showed that the most severe eye fatigue were caused by the use of social media; the pupil dilation was the greatest during social media browsing compared to reading e-books or watching videos. The study also shows that after 1 hour of smartphone use, the frequency of blinking decreases by 54% to 61%, and the blinking interval increases by 39% to 42%. The eyes are thus kept open longer which makes them more susceptible to fatigue.

Researchers think that the continuous change in content and brightness of the screen when browsing social media is the main reason as to why eye fatigue is more severe. People in general are advised to concentrate on controlling the amount of time they spend on browsing social media while at the same time minimizing the time spent looking at the screen.

Don’t use electronic products for more than 20 minutes at a time

Why staring at a screen makes your eyes tired?》 The Daily Mail website once published an article saying that the more we rely on electronic devices for work, study and entertainment, the more our vision will be affected. Just as repetitive movements can hurt the wrist, looking at the screen for long periods of time can strain the eye muscles. While staring at the screen, the lens of the eye is fine-tuned frequently, whereas the presence of strong light, flicker, color, and brightness contributes to the complexity which forces the eye muscles to work harder to maintain their clear vision. In most cases, when using “electronic products,” our distance and angle are not suitable, which makes our eyes have to work harder to focus.

“Good Housekeeping,” an American magazine, published a list of behaviors that destroy eyes as summarized by American ophthalmologists, and one of those behaviors was staring at the screen. The number of blinks in one minute under normal circumstances is 12 to 15. If you are a long-time starrer at the screen, then the number of blinks will be significantly less which can easily lead to the development of various eye diseases such as dryness, fatigue, and myopia. Hence, when you are using a computer, watching TV, and looking at your phone, you should always look up into the distance and let your eyes rest.

The National Health Commission has also issued the “White Paper on Eye Health in China,” which recommends that the use of electronic products should be limited to 20 minutes per session. The most important thing in eye protection is looking into the distance.

Screens not only hurt the eyes; they also affect mental health. A comprehensive study of more than 400,000 adolescents worldwide revealed that adolescents who are engaged in electronic screen usage for more than 2 hours a day can be impacted in terms of their physical and mental health.

Doing 7 points helps protect your eyes

The American Academy of Ophthalmology states that most vision problems are preventable and suggests the following 7 “Protect vision” actions that should be done.

1. Wear sunglasses, even when it is a cloudy day. Exposure to the sun for a long time can “stab” the eye, thus increasing the possibility of cataracts, macular degeneration, ocular growth, and some rare eye tumors.

2. Regular exercise and physical activities can keep away some serious eye diseases. Research from Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University shows that going outside more than 40 minutes a day to play can help prevent nearsightedness in children.

3. Stop smoking because smoking increases the chance of eye diseases, for example, cataracts and age-related macular degeneration. Smoke can also make dry eye worse.

4. Make sure that your eyes are well taken care of at work and in your free time. Wear eye protection when necessary.

5. Be careful of eye strain, remember the “20-20-20” rule. Computers, mobile phones, televisions, these screens are the sources of “capturing” many people’s eyes every day, and people often do not remember to blink, which is why their eyes get tired quickly. In this situation, remember the “20-20-20” rule, that is, every 20 minutes, look away from the screen and look 20 feet (about 6 meters) forward for 20 seconds. Eye fatigue does not cause vision change immediately. If the eyes continue to be tired, however, some problems, for example, dry eye syndrome, presbyopia, etc. may occur.

6. Be very careful with contact lenses; do not wear them to sleep, in the shower, or when swimming; it can increase the possibility of eye infections that may result in blindness.

7. Know the family history, certain eye diseases can be passed down genetically, if someone in the family has glaucoma, then the chances of you getting glaucoma will be increased by 4 to 9 times.

Disclaimer: The following image/content has been generated by an Artificial Intelligence model and is not a photograph or a traditional human creation.