Can a smartphone make you blind?

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Have you found yourself in the habit of checking your smartphone immediately after waking up or before going to bed? Then you will probably be interested to know that it can cause quite significant harm to your eyes.

More recently, two curious cases of temporary blindness have been reported in the UK. The women complained of similar symptoms, one experiencing short-term vision problems immediately after waking up, and the other before going to bed. Doctors have linked this phenomenon to the use of mobile phones: it turns out that lying in bed on your side with a smartphone in front of your eyes can cause temporary vision problems.

The New England Journal of Medicine had detailed information on these two cases.

The first patient was a 22-year-old girl. She complained that in the dark she could no longer see with her right eye. During the year, this was repeated several times a week, but vision quickly returned. Finally, the girl still decided to see a doctor, who, after examination, checking the blood vessels and several tests, did not find any abnormalities. An examination was even carried out to determine if the girl had any heart problems. However, everything corresponded to the norm: the patient was absolutely healthy, but from time to time she could not see her eyes.

The second victim of temporary blindness syndrome was a 40-year-old woman who described similar symptoms to her doctor: for six months she lost the ability to see with one eye immediately after waking up. Vision was restored after 15 minutes. The situation was repeated again: no abnormalities and diseases were observed, examinations did not reveal anything.

Doctors began to find out what factors could cause this temporary loss of vision. After additional questioning of the patients, the following pattern was revealed: blindness occurred after women looked at the screens of their smartphones for some time. Moreover, most often they did it lying on their side, due to which one eye was partially covered by a pillow.

The doctors concluded that these two phenomena are related. The eye, covered with a blanket or pillow, adapted to the dark, while an open eye, on the contrary, adapted to the bright light emanating from the smartphone screen. When the display went out, the eyes, accustomed to the bright glow, ceased to see until they got used to the light again.

The doctors did not confine themselves to asking the patients, they decided to test the theory for themselves. Of course, after a short experiment with smartphones, they did not acquire the syndrome of temporary blindness, but still noted some deterioration in the ability to see with one eye.

The authors of the study are confident that in the future there will be more and more visits to doctors with similar complaints. The display brightness of phones and other gadgets is constantly increasing, and people are increasingly dependent on them.

We have described these two cases to help other doctors save time in making a diagnosis and to avoid unnecessary anxiety and costly research.

Scientists studying temporary blindness

If you suddenly notice similar symptoms, try to break the habit of looking at the screen with one eye. Does not work? Then at least slightly dim the display. After all, it is not yet clear how all this affects our retina.