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Before the invention of books, short sightedness was far less common. So let’s blame Gutenberg.
you can’t possibly know that
There are studies showing that short sightedness is caused by focusing on close objects for extended periods of time. They’ve done numerous studies over decades on the increasing cause of it in children and it essentially boils down to the fact that the eye (when viewing close objects) can’t “unblur” the background (everything that is right behind the close thing you’re looking at). Your eye continues to try to do so. This continual struggle actually reshapes your eye, causing myopia, so your eye literally becomes egg shaped. Notably, the rates drastically increased when kids started doing more “near work” (homework) and spending less time outside.
So yes, we do know that.
Here’s a transcript of a podcast that discusses it, with linked citations at the parts it’s discussed at. https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRMWnsM8thCF5giSiABkfCFUCxLzjM8PSby1V1Etn4jTavVpcuAwR0wjVhpZ2gLYK3QJUNzRYoiU9_p/pub
It’s not fair!
Natural selection is how humans developed the capability to invent optometry in the first place
One problem with secondary education’s skittishness around spending too much time on evolution, is this widespread misunderstanding about the nature of “survival of the fittest” which paints nature as a cut-throat bloodthirsty beast that punishes physical weakness in individuals.
The entire history of evolution, right down to single-cell organisms, is the history of co-operation and symbiosis; OOP would have been just fine because the tendency of any group of animals to protect their weaker members who benefit the group in other ways, is not at all rare.
Yes! Evolution has never operated on individuals, it’s right there in the title of the book “On the Origin of Species”.
Without spending 8-12+ hours a day staring at a screen, I probably wouldn’t have needed glasses.
Far as we know currently, looking/staring at screens does not cause permanent damage to your vision.
Screen time is no worse than book time or sewing time or Wolfenstein time.
Concentrating reduces your blink rate. Reduced blinking dries out your eyes. That’s the main detrimental effects.
There’s evidence piling up that there is an inverse correlation between outdoor time in childhood and nearsightedness. It’s believed that the brightness of sunlight helps stimulate eye growth in a spherical shape, whereas children who don’t get a lot of sunlight are more likely to have eyes grow in a non-spherical shape with greater distance between the lens and the retina.
You can search the scientific literature for myopia and childhood sun exposure for a large number of studies on the topic.
Does screen time correlate with myopia? Maybe, but through the confounding variable that both stats tend to be inversely correlated with sunlight exposure.
I’ve been looking at screens for decades and I still have perfect vision
Yeah of course because the notion that observing something would damage your eyes is insane. It’s like saying that looking at trees can damage your eyes because they’re very big, madness.
The reason for widespread short-sightedness is unknown but the best study I read showed that kids playing indoor sports have significantly worse vision compared to the same outdoor sports.
My theory is because we look up close frequently, our eyes become adjusted to it. As a very near sighted person I can tell you, I see much better very close (a few inches from my eyes) than someone with 20/20, like magnification. Try it. I also used a screen probably 8 hours a day even since early childhood (lol, 90s parents).
We are really well adapted for pre-history and there’s evidence we were happier and healthier back then (murder/rape was common, though). “Sapiens” covers this fantastically in general.
That magnification effect is why I don’t want lasik, it’s like my little superpower.
Plus the whole eyeball surgery thing.
It’s the smell of burning eyeball for me.
Some research postulates it’s the lack of sunlight.
Back when I first had to get glasses I had been spending as much time outside as I possibly could. It’s just something genetic and has nothing to do with how you look at things. The reason our ancestors survived it was we lived in tribes and helped each other out.
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And indoor plumbing!
Ya, hard pass on traveling back in time. The past smells like shit.
I was thinking of just going back to the '80s with a shotgun and a list.
laughs in natural 20/15 vision, but quickly devolves into an asthmatic coughing fit and starts looking for his inhaler
And then I realize I would have most likely died during birth anyway…
Can we make this happen for all the science-denying idiots out there? Let’s start with RFK.
Don’t even need to take of my glases.
I would just straight die if i had to sleep a night outside where all the bugs and spiders live.
Depends on wealth and nobility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_known_as_the_Blind
My, aren’t you a big kitty!..
Fair, but cavemen in our time keep falling for cults.
my eyes are pretty shitty but I went 3 years without correction once when I didn’t have insurance and I did ok. Being born really premature would have taken me out pretty quick though.
Nope. I’m farsighted. I can see a predator a mile away, just might eat a rock instead of food if I don’t bother to feel it first
