We're all probably guilty of sitting a little too close to our screens,
whether you're a gamer and your monitor is too big for your desk,
or you spend hours a day with a VR headset strapped to your noggin.
Or if you were just yelled at by your mom by having your face practically smushed against the TV
while you're watching Saturday morning cartoons. Man, I'm old.
Okay, but what exactly qualifies as too close?
I mean, sure, you don't want to sit so close where you're making out individual pixels,
but can sitting really close to the screen actually damage your vision,
as the public has commonly believed? To help us answer, we spoke with ophthalmology fellow
and Cornell Medical School graduate, Dr. Daniel Agarwal.
And we'd like to thank him for his contributions. So a big part of the reason people worry
about whether sitting too close can hurt their eyes is that many of us feel eye strain
when we're staring at something for far too long. Eye strain is a natural consequence of attempting to focus
on just one thing for long periods of time. And if you're sitting close to a screen,
chances are you're hyper-focused on whatever it is you're looking at,
say a tense moment in a sporting event or an angry message from a soon-to-be ex-lover.
But why does focusing on something for a long time make your eyes hurt?
It turns out that the mechanism for this isn't completely understood,
but it's thought that because your eyes are trying to intensely maintain
their focus for so long, it ends up overworking
your ciliary muscles. These are the muscles that control the shape and curvature
of the crystalline lens near the front of your eye so that they can properly focus.
Looking at something close by causes them to contract. So it's natural that they might tire out.
Just think about how sore your other muscles get after a hard day at the gym.
However, the good news is that this has never been demonstrated
to cause permanent eye damage in adults. And if you're worried about brightness,
that's probably not a big deal either. As everyday electronic screens simply don't appear
to get bright enough to cause retinal damage.
Although it might be unpleasant to use a phone at full brightness in a dark room.
I know that annoys me. It's nowhere close to, say, staring at the sun like an idiot
or doing something stupid with a laser pointer. But if you're a teenager or you have children
or you're a teenager with children, keep in mind, some studies have suggested that excessively focusing
on objects too close to you can cause near-sightedness
or myopia later in life because your eye is still growing at that age.
And this isn't limited to sitting too close to electronic screens.
Even if you're spending too much time with your nose in a book, that can cause problems too.
So make sure you're resting your eyes enough if you're one of our younger viewers.
Of course, eye strain is still annoying even if it isn't actually harmful to adults in the long term.
So if you're suffering from tired eyes after yet another hour playing League of Legends,
give your eyes a break and maybe go outside where you'll probably be paying attention
to objects that are more distant from you. Another good idea is to use a reputable brand
of artificial tears, not El Chippo eye drops.
Since when you're focusing on things close to you for long periods, your eyes tend to dry out
because you're not blinking as much. That's really all there is to it if you're an adult.
There are far greater health concerns from staring at a screen all day like maintaining poor posture
or ending up like Dr. Robotnik because you never bother to get up from your racing chair.
So thanks for watching guys. If you liked this video, you know what to do. Give it a like, give it a subscribe
and hit us up in the comments section with your suggestions for topics that we should cover in the future.