WEBVTT

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We're all probably guilty of sitting a little too close to our screens,

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whether you're a gamer and your monitor is too big for your desk,

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or you spend hours a day with a VR headset strapped to your noggin.

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Or if you were just yelled at by your mom by having your face practically smushed against the TV

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while you're watching Saturday morning cartoons. Man, I'm old.

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Okay, but what exactly qualifies as too close?

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I mean, sure, you don't want to sit so close where you're making out individual pixels,

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but can sitting really close to the screen actually damage your vision,

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as the public has commonly believed? To help us answer, we spoke with ophthalmology fellow

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and Cornell Medical School graduate, Dr. Daniel Agarwal.

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And we'd like to thank him for his contributions. So a big part of the reason people worry

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about whether sitting too close can hurt their eyes is that many of us feel eye strain

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when we're staring at something for far too long. Eye strain is a natural consequence of attempting to focus

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on just one thing for long periods of time. And if you're sitting close to a screen,

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chances are you're hyper-focused on whatever it is you're looking at,

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say a tense moment in a sporting event or an angry message from a soon-to-be ex-lover.

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But why does focusing on something for a long time make your eyes hurt?

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It turns out that the mechanism for this isn't completely understood,

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but it's thought that because your eyes are trying to intensely maintain

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their focus for so long, it ends up overworking

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your ciliary muscles. These are the muscles that control the shape and curvature

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of the crystalline lens near the front of your eye so that they can properly focus.

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Looking at something close by causes them to contract. So it's natural that they might tire out.

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Just think about how sore your other muscles get after a hard day at the gym.

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However, the good news is that this has never been demonstrated

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to cause permanent eye damage in adults. And if you're worried about brightness,

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that's probably not a big deal either. As everyday electronic screens simply don't appear

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to get bright enough to cause retinal damage.

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Although it might be unpleasant to use a phone at full brightness in a dark room.

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I know that annoys me. It's nowhere close to, say, staring at the sun like an idiot

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or doing something stupid with a laser pointer. But if you're a teenager or you have children

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or you're a teenager with children, keep in mind, some studies have suggested that excessively focusing

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on objects too close to you can cause near-sightedness

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or myopia later in life because your eye is still growing at that age.

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And this isn't limited to sitting too close to electronic screens.

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Even if you're spending too much time with your nose in a book, that can cause problems too.

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So make sure you're resting your eyes enough if you're one of our younger viewers.

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Of course, eye strain is still annoying even if it isn't actually harmful to adults in the long term.

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So if you're suffering from tired eyes after yet another hour playing League of Legends,

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give your eyes a break and maybe go outside where you'll probably be paying attention

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to objects that are more distant from you. Another good idea is to use a reputable brand

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of artificial tears, not El Chippo eye drops.

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Since when you're focusing on things close to you for long periods, your eyes tend to dry out

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because you're not blinking as much. That's really all there is to it if you're an adult.

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There are far greater health concerns from staring at a screen all day like maintaining poor posture

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or ending up like Dr. Robotnik because you never bother to get up from your racing chair.

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So thanks for watching guys. If you liked this video, you know what to do. Give it a like, give it a subscribe

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and hit us up in the comments section with your suggestions for topics that we should cover in the future.