Smartphones have become an inevitable part of modern life. As mobile devices become more affordable and therefore more available, the number of people using them will undoubtedly rise. However, excessive use of these mobile devices is affecting our vision which you will learn more about in this blog.
Mobile phones are useful for just about everything: checking vehicles schedules, taking pictures, joining in on family and friends group talks, booking doctor’s appointments, movie tickets, paying any bills, or even texting and making phone calls, which is what the phone was designed for in the first place.
Even if you do not use your mobile outside of work hours, several occupations require you to sit in front of a computer screen for 35 to 40 hours per week. Children also spend the most time on screens. While this is perfect for keeping in touch with people, coordinating transportation, and completing tasks quickly and efficiently, how does it affect our health?
Are Rays Emitted From Mobile Devices Harmful?
Light is transmitted by smartphones, tablets, and other portable devices. Blue light, in particular, is potentially harmful to your eyes. Besides, such circumstances as using devices late at night will amplify the blue light.
Scientists from the University of Toledo may just have discovered how blue light produced by your devices can cause macular degeneration, one of the most common causes of vision loss in the United States.
Our facial, neck, and shoulder muscles contract as we stare to read tiny mobile screens, our eyes grow tired, and our vision becomes distorted or strained. Computer Vision Syndrome is the name for this set of symptoms.
So the answer is yes. The rays emitted from mobile devices are harmful and affect our vision.
What Happens When Children Use Mobile Phones Excessively?
With young children constantly spending hours on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, this could become a concern for them. Excessive use of devices can cause various negative effects on a child’s eyesight. Forbidding your child from mobile devices is not always possible. So there is a need to find the perfect balance of parenting with digital development.
Following are some problems that Mobile devices might cause due to sticking on mobile for longer hours:
Overuse of Mobile Devices Raises The Risk of Myopia (short-sightedness)
As a result, parents should pay attention to signs and activities such as rubbing the eyes regularly, blinking too much, ripping when reading or watching TV, staring intently and tilting the head, headaches from eye stress, etc., eye fatigue and double vision is a common complaint.
It is recommended that if a child shows any signs as mentioned above or complaints, parents should take their children for a vision test and eye screening. The eye test can be done at an eye hospital by an ophthalmologist (eye specialist).
Keep An Eye Out For “Lazy Eye”
Myopia ranging from moderate to high can result in “Lazy eye,” also known as amblyopia. Even if there is no physical flaw with the eye, this impairs the child’s vision. Early childhood amblyopia happens when one or both eyes transmit blurry images to the brain.
If the brain does not obtain precise images during visual growth, it can only see faint images. Fortunately, if amblyopia is identified early, preferably before the age of six, it is treatable. When amblyopia is diagnosed late, the child’s vision cannot improve even with spectacles or permanently affected.
So, you could visit children’s eye specialists frequently. A child could not understand what is happening, so it is the parents’ responsibility to take care of eye health by taking them for treatment once in 5 to 6 months periodically. Also, take the doctor’s advice seriously.
How To Keep Your Children’s Eyes Safe From Mobile Devices?
As a parent, you do not think that banning your child from using mobile devices is the easiest or most realistic solution. And anyway, your child will come into contact with these devices at some point. Your children could not understand your rude attitude towards them regarding mobile use.
Act smart and trick them so that they could themselves stop using mobile excessively. Instead, it would be best if you considered imposing limitations on your child’s use of such devices. Keeping your children away from electronic or mobile devices so that you can protect kids from affecting their vision can be accomplished by:
1. Controlling Kids Screen Time
Set a rule of 30 minutes of playtime per session on mobile devices. Children should necessarily reduce the screen timing on their devices because it may be harsh to their eyesight. Focusing on a screen for a longer time may destroy their brain cells as well as weaken eyesight.
Make a rule of using less mobile. For example, discard mobile during mealtime, family time, study time, before sleep, and other family gatherings. Encourage children to focus on other creative works rather than using cellphones.
Involve children in arts, music, dance, learning science projects, and so on. Also, hand them interesting books, and fun stuff to distract them from smartphones. You need to tackle the problem very carefully. Please do not be harsh on them no matter what. Have patience and keep trying; you will get over this problem.
2. Ensure Your Kids Take Eye Rest During Device Usage
Kids nowadays stick-on mobile in such a way that they even forget to blink their eyes. Mostly, parents also encourage them to use mobile to take a break from parenthood, which is a very bad idea. By doing this, you are only harming your children.
Let them take a break from their devices and do something fun and productive. You can even tell them to nap for a while, complete homework and other assignments, do cycling or skating, and engage in outdoor as well as indoor activities.
Set strict rules on mobile phone usage and make sure they could follow them strictly. You can also reward them with positive words and punish them. Punishing does not mean harming them; this could be doing minor chores and other useful works.
3. Encourage Your Children To Participate In Outdoor Games
Children become more active and creative when involved in outdoor games. Games such as basketball, volleyball, football, swimming, cycling, skating, and more help them keep busy and productive at the same time.
Outdoor games are not only fun but also help in your child’s physical and mental health. The food today’s children consume is mostly unhealthy. If children start playing physical games, they will get proper exercise which keeps them healthy and fit. The whole family can take part in outdoor activities with family to stay active.
Children might not want to indulge in such activities; you can make outdoor activities a rule which everyone in the family follows properly. You can also invite your friends, your children’s friend and another close to make the game more interesting.
4. Motivate Your Children To Do Yoga, Exercise, and Meditation
Doing exercise, teaching yoga to kids, and performing meditation keep your children calm and mentally and physically active, and fit. Children are often moody; it’s not possible to handle their moods all the time. Such peaceful activities also balance their mood, and children would love twist-turns and flip-flops.
Practicing new yoga poses and demonstrating fun exercises may add interest in children, and they would love doing such kinds of stuff. At least, you could keep them away from mobile for some time.
There may also be possibilities that your children would use the mobile phone in a limited portion. Physical activities give a new spirit and keep them away from distractions. As their mind and body become active, children would start practicing new and productive activities rather than spending time on smartphones.
5. Use Parental Control Applications
Fenced.ai, Quostodio, KidsLogger are some of the parental control applications. These apps monitor your kids’ devices. You can control their smartphones by managing their social media, online, offline activities, and also limiting the screen timing.
There may be chances that your kids may see inappropriate content on their devices, and you could even block them. Mostly, mobile interaction leads to serious problems like weak vision, skin irritation, headaches, itching in the eyes, and more.
To prevent your children from the negative consequences of mobile, add monitoring apps so that you could control mobile phone usage. By doing this, your kids could stay safe, and you could also relax. Mainly, such apps are the solution to many parent-child problems.
6. Be Certain That Every Room Is Well Lit
When you are working on a screen, you are exposed to artificial light to an extreme level. You are focused on your screen to an extreme level that you forget about your room lighting. Open your curtains and reduce the use of fluorescent lighting in every room to keep it from being too bright.
Ensure the lighting source is around half as bright as the typical lights by using lower voltage bulbs. It is unnecessary to use such low voltage lighting every time but during screen timing, be aware of your children doing so.
Children could stay at home all the time with mobile phones, so you can add a switch to control the light’s voltage and encourage them to lower the voltage while using electronic devices. Reducing light voltage may not help them, but surely, they will reduce the risk of damaging your children’s eyesight.
7. Examine Your Kids’ Eyes Periodically
Your teenagers can understand what’s going wrong with their eyes, but younger kids could not understand well if their eyesight is weakening. It is always preferable to start early.
It is generally said, “Prevention is better than cure,” which is indeed true. Take your children to an ophthalmologist periodically, which can be every six months, so that your child could have healthy eyes. And if there is any problem, the early diagnosis might help.
Please do not neglect the signs and symptoms your children suffer or complain about their eyes. The eyes are the most important as well as a sensitive organ of the human body. Always try to protect your children’s eyes. For this, you can add a good nutrition-rich diet or tell your children to use mobile less.
8. Make Use of High-Definition Displays
CRT screens are no longer used by the majority of citizens. Those were the old computer screens with low refresh rates, which caused a visible spark and made your eyes hurt.
Today’s displays have refresh rates of 75 Hz or higher. The higher the number of refresh rates, the better. Furthermore, higher resolution displays look more lifelike. Mostly, such screens are eye-friendly as compared to lower-quality ones.
Your eyes do not have to work as hard to make sense of the things in front of you because you cannot see the pixels. Bring devices such as tablets, computers, and smartphones for your children, which have high resolution and pixel depths.
9. Reduce Device’s Brightness
Glare on your computer screen will cause eye strain because it prevents your eyes from adapting to the content you are trying to concentrate on as quickly as they can. Where necessary, use an anti-glare matt screen rather than glass-covered LCDs as screens like Tv, and smartphones actually affect kids’ sleep.
If your children wear glasses, make sure the lenses are anti-reflective. Various eye-protecting screen covers and spectacles are available in the market, and you can learn and use them for your children’s eyes which might help protect your children’s eyes. You can manage the device’s brightness from phone settings easily.
Parents know what is best for their children. Today technologies are far more advanced; you can learn about advanced and latest screen protectors and use them for your child’s welfare which might reduce the risk of weakening your children’s eyesight.
10. Check And Remind Your Children To Blink
Your children might forget to blink while using smartphones and tablets, which might seem ridiculous. Children become oblivious to the device because they are so focused on the games or other materials. Children forget everything when they hold smartphones in their hands. Addiction to devices can lead to discomfort and even cybersickness.
When we blink, we are keeping our eyes moist and refocusing them. To prevent pressure and dryness, everyone should blink often. To help your children, you should keep distracting them every 20 or 30 minutes so they could remove their eyes from smartphones or tablets.
You can set a timer on your phone or remind them by calling their names. You can also make them play indoor games such as board games, card games, chess, ludo, and more. Make various ways to distract them while playing with their friends. Remember, the disturbances should be healthy, not harsh.
Conclusion
So, the excessive use of mobile devices is affecting our vision. Therefore you need to keep cross-checking your kids’ eye conditions and do not forget to take your kids to an ophthalmologist periodically. When your kids complain about eye problems, take serious action, do not ignore them. Protect your children from excessive exposure to the blue right. Reduce brightness in kids’ devices and set the timer for screen limitation or add parental control if situations go out of control.
