Computer vision syndrome: The dangers of modern living

As you’re reading the pixelated words projected onto this screen, I regret to inform you that your eyes are losing their childhood suppleness. A downhill slope awaits.

Presbyopia is caused by the loss of elasticity in the lens, typically affecting middle and old age; screens only hurry this process. Perhaps you’ll combat presbyopia by distancing the screen with an extended arm; this is a somewhat reflex act that attempts to combat squinting, by making it easier for the lens to focus. Or you might enlarge the font size to a progressive/regressive (depending on your attitude) level. Both of these measures, however, combat the consequences rather than the root of the issue.

Laser eye surgery combats the root of the problem, as it ensures vision is lastingly corrected.

But we must also look beyond the eye, and into the cause. Screens. Our dependence on them and the addictive nature of brightness. Like morphine, it persuades us to increase the level ad nauseum until we find we are blinded like moths to a bulb.

Perhaps we should change the objects we look at, as well as our perception of them. With the rise in Virtual Reality, are phones becoming our reason for vision?

Where is the ink? Displaced from the physicality of the page, it now exists somewhere upon the screen. But precisely where? The bulbs that create the screen emit light, rather than definitively place it in the realm of the physical. Our eyes now have to do the positioning.

Let us cast our minds back to our ancestors. Before the reign of technology, our eyes dwelt outside, exposed only to the natural elements. Our gaze transitioned from the panoramic highlands to compressed, short-sighted city settings, and we spend more time than ever with our eyes glued to the screen.

Anti-glare technology, rest breaks, blue-filtering lenses and blinking help to reduce eye-strain. 65% of American adults complain of eye-strain.