I’m sure most of us, if not all of us college students are guilty of using our phones late at night before going to bed. I am guilty of it as well. When I finish my homework and climb into bed, I grab my phone and look on social media sites to see what’s going on before going to sleep. Unfortunately, there may be some unhealthy downsides in doing this. There has been some discussion on this topic: could using your phone at night actually cause blindness?
Using our phones at night is a very common activity that most of us participate in. Most people check social media and send text messages before going to bed. According to The Business Insider, numerous people think using our smartphones at night is a harmless activity, but it can actually have damaging effect on our health. A report from GigaOm says that the light radiating out from our smartphones can ultimately harm our sleep cycle and overall health. According to Business Insider, that blue light (light from our smartphones) affects the way our body produces the chemical melatonin, which is the hormone produced by secreted by the pineal gland to help make us sleepy. The American Chemical Society further displayed the long-lasting impacts of the blue light of smartphones. They declared that the blue light essentially “tricks your body into thinking its morning, which messes with your circadian rhythm and makes it harder to fall asleep.” An excessive amount of using your smartphone at night for several hours can possibly lead to a disorder called macular degeneration. Macular degeneration is when the center section of the retina deteriorates. The retina is the nerve tissue located in the back of the eye that detects light, so when this is severely damaged, it can lead to blindness (in severe cases).
An extreme case of this theory was reported by Mail Online. A 26 year old man was texting his girlfriend from his smartphone at nighttime for several hours. The man suffered severe “retinal detachment” after using an app called WeChat to message his girlfriend over a period of several days and nights in the dark. The young man reported having symptoms such as immediate flashes when looking at something, which is a very common sign that the retina has been detached from the remainder of the eye. The man was taken into surgery by doctors who diagnosed his condition in which the retina pulled away from the blood vessels in the eye so the eye isn’t getting the necessary oxygen it needs to properly function. Scientists say the condition affects people of the ages 50 to 70 the most, but cases are heavily rising in younger people. Scientists believe that a probable cause of this is due to constant smartphone usage. Expertise in the field have said constantly staring at a laptop or smartphone can easily put a great amount of strain on your eye muscles. Andrea Thau told ABC News, “Our eyes have evolved for three-dimensional viewing. So we wind up over focusing as we strain to find a 3-D image on a close-up 2-D screen.”
Eye surgeons from around the world have reported that the amount of people who are experiencing short sightedness has increased due to smartphones. David Allamby from Focus Clinics further showed the severity of this issue: “There has been a 35 percent increase in the number of people with advancing myopia (short sightedness) since the launch of smartphones in 1997.” He even declared this issue can easily go up by 50 percent in the next decade. 
The National Eye Institute reported significant data that a high 66 percent increase in currency of myopia in the last 25 years since the appearance of the personal computer. According to All About Vision, myopia has been increasingly so quickly that about 42 percent of young adults in America are nearsighted. A new study from Sweden shows that less than 10 percent of healthy 10 year old kids are myopic. Researchers performed an experiment at Uppsala University in which they took 217 healthy 10-year old children. They ran tests to test something called “visual acuity” and eye disorders such as strabismus (two eyes cannot maintain proper alignment). From this study, 17 adolescents were nearsighted, 8 had farsightedness, and 9 children had astigmatism. 3 adolescents had below-average contrast sensitivity (ability to determine between smaller increments of light vs dark) and 5 had a reduced stereopsis, which is three-dimesonial vision. From this study, none of the children were visually impaired, but did not have normal visual acuity.
Overall, I would say there is a strong correlation between using smartphones and the impairment of vision. I think there even is a possible direct causality between using smartphones and a decrease in proper eye function. To correct this, we need to limit the amount of time spent on our smartphones and laptops. Most importantly, we need to get off the phone at night!
Sources:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2646136/Could-using-phone-night-cause-blindness.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-joyce-od/eye-strain_b_1591414.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/smartphone-night-bad-sleep-2014-9
http://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/eye-news.htm
I found this post very interesting. As I said in my blog I spend so much time before bed on my phone and it’s being determined that it causes problems with sleeping and causes a “hangover.” However, I did not know that it could cause problems with eye sight but after reading this it makes sense. We are constantly squinting at the screen and many times sitting in a dark room using a very bright screen. The study appears to be done pretty well so overall I do agree with you. There seems to be a strong correlation between smart phones and impaired vision.
This is a very interesting article. I didn’t know that using my phone before I went to bed at night would have any effect on my eyesight, however it looks like I was simply naive. I think that this same concept of staring at the screen in the dark could be connected with other similar theories as well. For example how for awhile there was some controversy over whether or not watching TV, or staring at your computer screen in the dark was detrimental to the eye. It seems that similarly to too much exposure to these things in a darkened room can have negative affects. I think it would be interesting to look at the side affects of watching tv in the dark compared to those that you just found based off cell phone use and see if there are any similarities. Here is an article about watching tv in the dark: http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/15698/1/Watching-TV-in-a-Dark-Room.html
When the idea “cellphone’s night using can hurt eyes seriously” first came out two ore three years ago, I was quit worried and scared, because during the high school, I spent most of my time before go to bed to play the phone game and view friend circles. But then ,as time going on, there’s nothing serious happen to my eye except the higher glasses degree. I think this is because the affection cellphone has to people’s eyes is a long-time thing. If a person keeping using cellphone before go to bed, the overall affection may become bigger and bigger in the end. If we have to use the phone in the darkness, at least we can turn the screen to the night vision to reduce bad effect it may bring to our eyes.
I have always heard the effects of using our phones at night. I was wondering if their was a comparison to using your phone at night and your gpa? This would be an interesting study seeing how college students all do this. I know I am victim of this as well.