Gadgets and a Child. How to Minimize the Risk of Losing Vision?

According to statistics, today`s children and adolescents spend 8-10 hours a day looking at multiple screens, although doctors insist that the maximum allowable time for this kind of activity is no more than 2-3 hours a day.

Nevertheless, modern life very often dictates its own terms. For modern children and teenagers, all kinds of gadgets have become the most popular way of entertainment, and from an early age they actively use smartphones, tablets, etc. – which has negative effects on their eye health. Scientific studies reveal that children show a tendency towards visual acuity problems, starting up from their pre-school years.

“It used to be thought that the leading cause of visual impairment was genes and heredity. But nowadays myopia more often occurs due to eye strain. Our visual apparatus is designed in such a way, that our eyes should not focus on one object for a long period of time. But a current trend in society is that children learn how to use gadgets from the cradle: they watch various developmental programs and cartoons on smartphones and tablets. While doing so, they keep their eyes steadily fixed on one object, which contributes to excessive eye strain. Therefore, we can say that kids begin primary school having already “prepared” their eyes for loss of vision.

At school the eye strain increases, and on top of it, after classes the children come back to their favorite computers and tablets. So, it turns out they let their eyes rest only in sleep, and that time is not enough to bring full, much needed relief to their eyes,” Natalia Zimenkova, pediatric ophthalmologist at Okomedikas Clinic in Cherkasy, explains.

That is why ophthalmologists sound alarm – because the celebrated progress of science and technology results in childhood myopia becoming the scourge of modern society.
Screen-obsessed kids face two problems. The first one is true or false myopia (nearsightedness). With true myopia, the eyeball is longer than normal. Pseudomyopia (false nearsightedness) is caused by a spasm of eye muscles, which cannot adapt for clear vision at various distances in time.

The second problem is dry eye syndrome, which develops due to a child`s “forgetfulness” – enthusiastically staring at the screen, they forget to blink. Normally, we blink around 18 times per minute, in doing this we keep our cornea lubricated with the tear film. But when we are staring at the screen, we blink only 2-3 times per minute!

How to Minimize the Risk of Losing Vision

And though we are unable to stop the scientific and technological progress, it is in our power to at least reduce to a minimum our children`s risk of vision loss. Here are some tips to help protect your child’s eyesight.

First of all, when buying your kid a smartphone, tablet, netbook, touch screen MP3 player, e-book reader and so on, pay attention to their characteristics. The combination of a small screen and a low resolution is especially dangerous here.

Screen resolution is not the size in inches, but the number of dots (pixels) per inch! This information is always indicated in technical description of any device with a screen.

The fewer these dots are, the more blurred pictures and letters will look on the screen, the tiniest squares they consist of (pixels, the aforementioned “dots”) will show. Accordingly, the higher the resolution is, the sharper the image will be and less harmful to the eyes.

Secondly, a child should undergo regular eye examinations. It is believed that schoolchildren should be seeing an eye doctor annually, but if the child is addicted to his tablet or is constantly playing computer games, then the eye doctor should be seen twice more frequently. Eye specialists at Okomedikas Ophthalmology Clinic are able to detect different types of refractive errors at an early stage and prevent the development of eye diseases.

During an eye exam the eye doctor will check their patient`s eyes using the most advanced and up-to-date equipment. It will help determine whether the child has a decreased visual acuity and if they need vision correction.