[HN Gopher] Shortsightedness has become an epidemic
___________________________________________________________________
Shortsightedness has become an epidemic
Author : nilsbunger
Score : 468 points
Date : 2022-06-12 06:17 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| jboogie77 wrote:
| Anyone have an unlocked link?
| spidersouris wrote:
| Here you go: https://arxius.io/f/e9c469eb
| ayewo wrote:
| Thanks, but the contents of your linked PDF, which is just
| plaintext, no images, is different from the Archive copy of
| the article shared up-thread here
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31712453
|
| Did the Economist show you a different article with the same
| title due to your location?
| spidersouris wrote:
| Sorry about that! I used the website of my academic library
| which collects articles from a variety of newspapers, but
| it seems they got the wrong one.
| ayewo wrote:
| No worries :)
| john-doe wrote:
| https://archive.ph/4i9OA
| stackbutterflow wrote:
| I noticed my eyesight gets better after many hours outside not
| looking at any screen. And worsen after many hours in front of a
| screen. Is there a name for that?
| rnd420_69 wrote:
| have you verified that it actually gets better and that you're
| not just getting used to it?
|
| I used to think the same thing when I just tried not wearing
| glasses for a while. I could swear that it was awful at first
| but over time my no-glases eyesight improved tremendously. I
| then did a really simple distance reading test and it was
| obvious that it didn't improve at all and the effect was
| imagined.
| KVFinn wrote:
| I think it's multiple things.
|
| Your eye is a muscle, focusing only at close range keeps the
| range of motion tight. Just like your back and neck might get
| stiff sitting all day.
|
| Sunlight means smaller pupil, wider depth of field, just like a
| camera.
|
| (My speculation) More light gives you brain more information to
| clean up or upscale a blurry image. This effect even seems to
| last when you leave sunlight, for awhile. It's like I fine
| tuned my neurons to prioritize blur reduction, and it takes
| awhile for them to fall back into normal processing. If this is
| true, my guess is that I might be trading off contrast or color
| details for sharpness.
| misslibby wrote:
| Could it just be dryness of the eyes?
| thiht wrote:
| Eyestrain
| d13 wrote:
| Probably because your pupils dilate in bright sunlight, which
| improves focus?
| plonk wrote:
| Some websites call it "computer vision syndrome" [1], but it
| just seems like eyestrain to me.
|
| [1] https://www.aoa.org/healthy-eyes/eye-and-vision-
| conditions/c...
| Aulig wrote:
| There is indeed, cilliary spasm and near induced transient
| myopia (nitm).
| tamrix wrote:
| My parents would call it square eyes lol
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| Tiredness of the eye muscles after many hours forcing the focus
| to a short distance.
| chasil wrote:
| Allow me to say this, _emphatticaly no!_
|
| "Governments are well placed to solve such collective-action
| problems..."
| atq2119 wrote:
| Who would you say is in a better position?
| seltzered_ wrote:
| See also https://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-boom-1.17120
| (2015)
| carapace wrote:
| Everything in nature is fractal-shaped, while most things in our
| artificial environments are made of flat surfaces. If you think
| of light as a kind of "food" for the eyes, we are effectively
| eating junk food all day every day.
| alar44 wrote:
| Lol that's just rediculous.
| carapace wrote:
| You misspelled ridiculous.
|
| It's a metaphor. Eyes evolved to process much more intricate
| light fields than we typically get in our
| homes/schools/offices. That has an effect?
| Stratoscope wrote:
| I've written about this before, but it bears repeating. However
| good your vision is when you're young, it will change as you get
| older.
|
| Most people become more farsighted as they age. Typically it
| starts when you are around 40 and changes rapidly for the next
| decade. After that it tends to settle down.
|
| More importantly, the lenses in your eyes become more rigid,
| losing their ability to focus at different distances.
|
| When I was younger, one eye was a bit nearsighted and the other a
| bit farsighted. This allowed me to get away without glasses
| longer than I should have. Even if I wasn't seeing clearly with
| both eyes, I could see at most distances with one eye.
|
| As my eyes' focus distance lengthened, my nearsighted eye
| attained close to normal vision, and my farsighted eye was
| focused past infinity. Not good.
|
| When I got my first pair of prescription single vision computer
| glasses, it was life-changing. Now I could see my laptop screen
| perfectly. I told my optometrist I wanted something like single
| vision reading glasses, but adjusted for the distance to my
| laptop screen, about 20", unlike the typical 16" focus distance
| of a reading prescription.
|
| In fact, this started to make me fussy about using high-DPI
| displays (~200 DPI) instead of the low-DPI displays (~100 DPI)
| I'd previously used. On a low-DPI display I could see the pixels!
|
| It does mean that when I use external monitors with the laptop, I
| need to have them also at this 20" distance. So to augment the
| laptop screen, I have a 24" 4K monitor in landscape mode
| immediately above it, and a second 24" 4K monitor in portrait
| mode to the left.
|
| Both of the external monitors are at about the same 20" distance
| from my eyes, and each of the three displays is angled
| differently so the center of the monitor is aligned with my
| vision: the laptop display at a typical laptop angle, the one
| above it closer to vertical (but still tilted a bit), and the one
| on the left at an in-between angle. The bottom of this monitor is
| about a half inch above my desk, just enough room to let cables
| run under it.
|
| This is a fairly glorious setup. All three displays are in focus
| for me, and the portrait display is great for reading
| documentation, especially PDF files that are so awkward on a
| landscape display.
|
| The key to this is the single vision glasses. I have seen so many
| people try to use progressive lenses with their computers, and
| they are always craning their neck back so they can see through
| the lower part of the lens that has a closer focus distance.
| Single vision lenses let everything be in focus at once,
| especially with the portrait mode monitor.
|
| Another key is that the computer glasses should have a fairly
| tall profile, not the truncated rectangular lenses that are so
| popular. This greatly improves the field of view.
|
| On my last visit to the optometrist they suggested lenses with a
| blue light filter. I said no thanks on that. Sometimes I do photo
| editing, and the blue light filter shifts everything to a warmer
| color. The way I solve the problem of too much blue light is that
| I simply don't turn my monitor brightness up so high. It is set
| so a white background is about the same brightness as a piece of
| white paper in the same lighting.
|
| I also have progressive glasses that I use for everything else
| when I'm not at the computer. These have magnetic clip-on
| sunglasses, which are pretty great. Indoors I can leave the
| sunglasses off and just use the progressives on their own.
| Because I wear aloha shirts with a pocket, I can keep the
| sunglass lenses in my pocket and I hardly know they are there.
| When I step outside or go driving, I just snap on the magnetic
| clip-ons and I'm good to go.
|
| The frames with magnetic clip-ons are a bit uncommon these days,
| but they are well worth finding.
|
| If anyone is curious I can look up the brand and exact model
| number for both the round single vision and the progressives I'm
| using.
| ayewo wrote:
| Please share links, thanks.
| gtsnexp wrote:
| Myopia has been an epidemic for many years now. And the future
| prospects look grim. Fortunately, there are research groups
| tackling this issue hoping to develop some gene-therapy approach.
| jart wrote:
| What? Why do we need to genetically engineer people for wearing
| glasses?
| harshreality wrote:
| Myopia is a risk factor for floaters, retinal detachment, and
| glaucoma. It's objectively not neutral, despite that glasses
| exist.
|
| Glasses are also inconvenient, cost money, can be lost or
| broken, and don't cover the entire field of vision, and
| contacts have their own problems.
| jart wrote:
| I can't believe you're serious. I wear glasses and there's
| nothing wrong with me. Last thing I want is to live in a
| world where I'm pressured to be genetically engineered for
| having the wrong kind of eyes.
| d_tr wrote:
| I have around -10 dioptres in both eyes, like my father.
| I am also amblyopic. It is a minor inconvenience for me
| right now, but the risks for serious problems in the
| future are real.
|
| The problem, if I understand correctly, is that myopia
| correlates well with eyeball elongation, which puts
| stress on the retina, thus sharply increasing the risk of
| macular degeneration and retinal detachment as you get
| older. Other complications are also more likely to occur.
|
| I was only vaguely aware of this until recently but I am
| a bit worried now and going to a doctor soon to asses the
| situation and manage the risks if possible.
| jcims wrote:
| Not to scare you or anything but to just reinforce the
| fact that you should incorporate regular retinal exams.
| My daughter is also around -10 and in a recent eye exam
| they did the retinal imaging thing (that i always thought
| was just an upsell scam). Well they found what they
| thought was retinoschisis. They referred her to a retina
| center (which of course took nearly a month).
|
| At that exam they found that her left eye had substantial
| retinal detachment and scheduled her for a scleral buckle
| procedure the following Tuesday to avoid any further
| progression. Aside from seeing some sparks every now and
| then there were no symptoms. Ocular migraines run on both
| sides of the family so she wasn't too worried about it.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| I wear glasses and there's nothing wrong with me at the
| moment either, and I hope it keeps being that way, but
| the augmented risks mentioned by the GP are real and
| well-attested.
|
| In fact, many ophtalmologists consider LASIK and their
| ilk to be cosmetic surgery, because it gets you rid of
| the glasses, but not of all the other consequences of
| myopia.
| trashface wrote:
| You can get glaucoma later in life. I was diagnosed in my
| mid-40s, now I have to take drops for the rest of my
| life. And still might go blind. Some people with open-
| angle glaucoma don't even know they have it, which is why
| it is referred to as "the silent thief of sight". I'd
| definitely take a genetic cure for this if one existed.
|
| There might be nothing wrong with you now, but there is
| no guarantee it will stay that way.
| kortilla wrote:
| If there's nothing wrong with you, why are you wearing
| glasses? I wear hearing aids because my hearing is
| flawed. I would be ecstatic if there was a genetic
| solution.
| jart wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear about your hearing. From what I've
| heard, hearing aids help but they are not a satisfactory
| solution. So if you still feel something is wrong, then
| the way _you_ feel is what matters.
|
| There's nothing wrong with my vision because I wear
| glasses. I like my glasses. I consider glasses to be a
| satisfactory technology that solves the problem I used to
| have before I got them. I see myself as one with the
| technologies I use. If someone thinks I should adopt the
| GE technology instead of the optical glassware
| technology, then fine, but no one has the right to tell
| me I have a problem.
|
| Ideally what I'd want are glasses that let me see the
| things normal people can't see, like electromagnetic
| radiation other than the narrow part of the spectrum for
| visible light, such as infrared, gamma rays, and hidden
| colors, etc. Superhuman vision would be real progress
| imho and a whole lot less creepy than what's being
| proposed here.
| kortilla wrote:
| They are called "corrective lenses" because they are
| correcting your flawed vision. You have a problem you
| address with glasses. It's no different than any other
| medical technology to address a life altering flaw.
|
| You can be happy with the solution, but there is still
| something wrong with your eyes. Someone offering a
| solution that actually fixes your eyes shouldn't be
| offensive and you most certainly shouldn't be
| discouraging it. It's like someone getting in a huff
| about a diabetes cure because they see their insulin
| needle as a part of themself.
| gcbirzan wrote:
| Not the wrong kind, but broken. And, while your vision
| might be fine, the other issues are still there.
| [deleted]
| gspr wrote:
| Because glasses suck, and we don't wanna condemn future
| generations to wear them if they don't have to (and they
| still can if they so choose, of course).
| astrange wrote:
| They're good if you don't like stuff flying into your eyes
| when you're outside.
| gspr wrote:
| Luckily you can still use them for that even if you no
| longer need them for vision correction :-)
| watwut wrote:
| and those are cheaper
| nilsbunger wrote:
| I didn't realize the evidence is strong that daylight keeps kids
| from becoming near-sighted. Making young kids study all the time
| is killing their eyesight!
| OskarS wrote:
| Yeah, I hadn't heard about this "daylight" thing either. I've
| been nearsighted since I was a kid, and back then people said I
| got it because I read to much, focusing on things too close to
| my face. I thought that was a pretty fair trade-off, since I
| liked reading, and didn't particularly mind wearing glasses.
|
| This sunlight thing makes a lot of sense though. I kept hearing
| proposals during the pandemic about holding classes outside if
| the weather allowed for it. Might not be such a terrible idea
| in climates where it's suitable.
| ip26 wrote:
| Interestingly, reading is usually done indoors.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Yes; among other reasons, sunlight reflecting off the white
| pages of a book is bright enough to injure your eyes.
|
| The basic Kindle model is grey and can be comfortably read
| in sunlight, and yet somehow people are convinced that the
| "PaperWhite" model is better...
| manmal wrote:
| The Paperwhite is called that because it has background
| lighting via weak LEDs.
| _ph_ wrote:
| What ever the name says, it isn't paper white. Actually,
| I think there is little difference, the difference is the
| light, which makes the PaperWhite look whiter in normal
| light and enables reading in dim conditions.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Perhaps some people read significantly more indoors or
| shade than direct sunlight
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| The grey background doesn't make it any harder to read.
| It's just less bright.
| [deleted]
| smeej wrote:
| I was told reading was my problem too...except I was only
| nearsighted in one eye. My right eye couldn't focus clearly
| past the length of my arm, but my left one had no trouble at
| all. For years, I wore a plain lens for the left eye, and
| when I was old enough, switched to wearing only one contact
| lens.
|
| They confirmed it wasn't that I was reading only with my
| right eye, and it's obviously not like my eyes got different
| amounts of sunlight, given that they go everywhere together,
| so I've always been suspicious that that was a lazy answer.
| prox wrote:
| I can't find the article atm, but read about a school who is
| trying that out right now, I think they started in the
| pandemic.
| frereubu wrote:
| My daughter's primary school teacher recently got a "beach
| teaching" qualification and she now has one school day a week
| on the beach, rain or shine. I was really pleased about that
| anyway as the school doesn't have a lot of outdoor space for
| the kids to run around, but this gives me even more reason to
| be happy.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I scoffed at first, but I guess the qualification is about
| water safety and things, just in case?
| vasco wrote:
| You should've stopped at the scoff. Someone qualified to
| handle children in a classroom and in field trips is
| already qualified to take them to a beach.
| frereubu wrote:
| I think you may be misunderstanding, which is perhaps
| understandable given that I didn't unpack what it meant -
| see my sibling comment. But scoffing without asking for
| more information isn't a great strategy for learning.
| vasco wrote:
| I grew up in a beach town and gone to the beach in
| kindergarten all the time with the school without any
| special certifications. In the event kids go into the
| water there's always a lifeguard on duty already so
| otherwise it's the same as any other school outing, I'm
| not sure what the difference would be from leading a
| group of children in a city walk for example which to me
| looks way more dangerous.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _But scoffing without asking for more information isn
| 't a great strategy for learning._
|
| See the dart game scene from _Ted Lasso_ :
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ4YSXv6Xkg
| excalibur wrote:
| Making kids go to the beach in the rain isn't a great
| strategy either.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Rain is a good thing
| frereubu wrote:
| I know what you mean - I also had a bit of a similar
| reaction at first - but as I understand it's how to run
| lessons on a beach without classroom teaching materials
| to hand, how to use things on the beach in the context of
| certain subjects etc. Also, I said "qualification" which
| probably makes it sound grander than it is - she just
| went on a 3 or 4 day course.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| If we manage to have a kid, long walks everyday are planned :)
| More movement, less screen time is always good for health,
| parents' and kids' alike.
|
| Also, getting used to all sorts of weather improves the immune
| system. By spending too much time indoors we are becoming
| glasshouse flowers.
| mattlondon wrote:
| Good luck with the plan :)
|
| Under the age of about 1 to 1.5 then you get to call the
| shots of what happens when. Walk as mu h as you like.
|
| After that age, the kids start to get their own opinions and
| won't always just do what you want them to do. _You_ may want
| to go for a long walk, but the kid wants to do something
| else. They 'll spend 95% of the time trying to escape the
| buggy/stroller or trying to run off or just sit on the floor
| if they're walking.
|
| At that age we've found that it is best to not have any plans
| for things you _need_ to do - e.g. don 't plan to "walk to
| the store", because it might take you 25 minutes to go about
| 200 meters because you need to stop to look at a traffic
| light or a store front or a car that is red or whatever -
| i.e. you'll never get to the store without a fight. That
| said, they usually love the playground though so swings and
| slides and stuff can replace being a docile lump that you
| cart around.
| simonh wrote:
| It very much depends on the relationship you have with your
| kids. Respect and trust are really important.
|
| However beyond that IMHO frankly it's critical safety
| imperative that children do what their parents tell them
| when it matters. If you're in the street near traffic a
| child disregarding parental instructions is a life and
| death issue. There are other safety critical situations
| too. This is why I feel it's vital that children and
| parents have a relationship of trust and respect, in both
| directions, that allows for that. It's not easy, I know.
| mattlondon wrote:
| Your kids can trust and respect you, but they still get
| curious and still get bored. They won't always want to do
| what you want them to do, especially when they are
| toddlers.
|
| You need to let kids be kids (while being safe which I
| obviously agree with)
| ayewo wrote:
| With respect to building respect and trust with young
| kids, this video might be useful
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHvm1J9HVLo
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Dr. Paul Jenkins is great!
| watwut wrote:
| It is not necessary that bad. I had some fights with kids
| at that age, but it definitely was not every single time we
| walked. You are exaggerating how bad it is.
|
| What you do is normal at that age. If you walk to store
| frequently it is normal routine and lead to fights only
| occasionally. And while kid stops to look at boring things,
| it is not like they would stop for hours, most of time you
| nudge them after few seconds and they go.
|
| It is slower then adult speed, but not that impossibly
| slow.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| > I had some fights with kids at that age, but it
| definitely was not every single time we walked. You are
| exaggerating how bad it is.
|
| Every child is unique. Some are more stubborn than
| others. This is a challenge with any parenting advice
| because there is so much variance. My experience is my
| kids do fight or linger every time despite the routine
| and nudges.
| watwut wrote:
| Sure. But the whole "heh your plan to have daily walks
| with kids is impossible" is just not true. Families with
| kids walk to places.
|
| Plus, there are millions of single parents around the
| world who don't have cars and walk+public transport their
| kids to daycare daily.
| PebblesRox wrote:
| Yes, when my oldest was 1 1/2, I took him on a lot of short
| walks where I had no particular destination in mind. It was
| great for teaching him sidewalk safety and for giving him
| freedom to practice whatever gross motor skills he was
| working on, like climbing up and down steps without holding
| on to stuff.
|
| Unfortunately I didn't do nearly as much of this kind of
| walk with his little brother, because it's not safe if your
| attention is divided between multiple kids.
|
| https://bancosparenting.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/freedom-
| wit...
| couchand wrote:
| Kids are crazy. One second they'll be yelling in your face
| about how completely different from you they are, then the
| next minute they're repeating you verbatim to a friend.
|
| You can absolutely get a kid excited about a long walk. It
| sounds like in your case your kid was enjoying it more than
| you were ;)
| chronci2901 wrote:
| > By spending too much time indoors we are becoming
| glasshouse flowers.
|
| Efficiency vs anti-fragility. Pick one, but not both.
| knob wrote:
| I love that you used anti-fragility correctly! =)
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Everyone thinks this, until they pop out a second one and
| there is no time or energy to do anything outside work, cook,
| clean, and all the baby/toddler tasks.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Huh? Walks outside with the toddler are the best. Stick him
| in either the stroller or bike seat and it's the only time
| they sit still.
|
| Guess it's a bit hard to combine with a baby <6 months, but
| eventually they should both fit.
| [deleted]
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It is rough if both parents are working. Lining up all
| the schedules and breastfeeding and whatnot is harder
| than it sounds, especially in northern (and southern)
| areas with less daylight hours. Just cooking and feeding
| and cleaning up after a picky toddler and baby learning
| how to eat can kill an evening. And then at least one is
| bound to be sick every other week if they are in day
| care...the list goes on for why plans have a low tendency
| to work out. See also mattlondon's comment.
| throwawayarnty wrote:
| It has been pretty easy on our end. We live walking
| distance to work and daycare.
|
| so it's no problem to even have both of us pick the kids
| up, walk home to eat lunch, walk kids back to daycare,
| and go back to work.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Yep... focusing (as in, your eyes keeping focus) on a thing
| that's at a fixed distance infront of you for extended periods
| of time seems to be very bad for your eyesight... "back in my
| times", the parents used to blame stuff like this on screens
| (tv back then), but books do the same thing. Basically all the
| workplace safety trainings here include the "stare at something
| in the distance every now and then", so you focus on something
| else, not just the screen <1m away from your face.
| rhinoceraptor wrote:
| XorNot wrote:
| Wisdom teeth used to just be a problem that either killed
| you, or you lived with lots of pain from, or you paid a guy
| to try and do _something_ about them.
|
| I don't know why people are so big on "we used to not need X
| in the distant past" tropes: yes we did, but we also just let
| _lots_ of people die from it, or live a life of agony or
| being shunned as ugly /unclean/unable.
| Nitramp wrote:
| Crooked teeth really didn't exist in the farther out past.
| If you look at the jawbones of Neolithic people, they all
| have perfectly aligned teeth.
|
| The theory is that we're not chewing hard enough food,
| which leads to insufficient jawbone growth as a kid,
| leading to not enough space for your teeth.
| idlehand wrote:
| I guess I should thank my mom and her well-done steaks
| for my decent jaw and relative lack of dental issues.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| Only Americans are afraid of wisdom teeth. 90 percent of
| the rest of the world keep them with no problems
| whatsoever.
|
| (Something something medical cartel...)
| watwut wrote:
| Where you got that from? They are surgically removed
| outside of USA regularly when they grow bad and cause
| infections.
| davidgay wrote:
| I think the difference is the US is very likely to remove
| them preemptively.
| coffeeblack wrote:
| If they killed that many people, how did they escape
| natural selection?
| jen729w wrote:
| They didn't kill you. You needed them, after your second
| teeth - what we call your 'adult teeth' - had rotten and
| fallen out.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Killed<>eradicated.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| If it happens after the person has a chance to raise
| offspring to a sufficient survival age, then it would not
| adversely affect natural selection.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > It is abnormal for humans to need glasses. It's also
| abnormal for humans to need braces and to need their wisdom
| teeth surgically removed.
|
| It's not. Just because there wasn't a documented cases of
| weakly sighted people doesn't mean that they didn't exist. Or
| do you seriously believe all prehistoric humans had 20/20
| eyesight?
|
| And unless your teeth are crooked line vines you _probably_
| don 't need braces from medical standpoint. Unless it causes
| issues to your jaw. Same with wisdom teeth.
|
| > The list of maladies caused by modern diet and lifestyle is
| infinite and unknowable.
|
| What exactly in modern diet and lifestyle causes issues that
| you've listed?
| lr1970 wrote:
| > Or do you seriously believe all prehistoric humans had
| 20/20 eyesight?
|
| The prehistoric realities were harsh and nearsighted
| individuals had little chances of survival and procreation
| (natural selection). In the modern society perfect eye-
| sight is not as important for survival as in the
| prehistoric society, thus more tolerance to its greater
| variability.
| idlehand wrote:
| Sunlight exposure has been shown to be protective of
| eyesight, and we spend more time indoors focusing on
| screens.
|
| The timespan is too short for evolution to have had a
| considerable impact.
| lr1970 wrote:
| > The timespan is too short for evolution to have had a
| considerable impact.
|
| I am not talking about evolution as in developing new
| species but about survivability of naturally occurring
| variations. Modern humanity timespan is not enough in
| developing new genetic traits but long enough to alter
| effects of natural selection. BTW, due to advances in
| medicine nowadays we have children born and survive into
| adulthood with medical conditions that were terminal just
| 100 years ago. Survival variability (in developed world)
| is much broader that it was in recent historic past (e.g.
| middle-ages). This is a plain fact.
| idlehand wrote:
| But the timeline is too short even for that. The number
| of children who survive today, despite genetic issues,
| who would not have survived 100 years ago, is miniscule
| compared to the extent of nearsightedness today.
| inkblotuniverse wrote:
| Soft foods cause crooked teeth. Ancestral humans ate raw
| tubers and other very chewy things that exercised their
| jaws, and the growing human body needs this
| resistance/exercise. If you look at modern hunter-gatherer
| tribes with traditional diets, they have a far lower rate
| of crooked teeth we'd solve with braces than the developed
| world.
|
| Sterile environments/too-low pathogenic load causes
| allergies. The immune system expects a base-rate of
| infection; if it doesn't see that, it upregulates.
| Allergies are a first-world disease; they're far less
| prevalent in less developed countries, and you even see the
| effect in immigrants- their allergy rates go up after a few
| years of living in a developed country.
| ejb999 wrote:
| >>Making young kids study all the time is killing their
| eyesight! reply
|
| I very much doubt kids 'studying too much' is the problem -
| staring at iphones all day watching tiktok and playing video
| games is more like it.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| That doesn't certainly help, but there was already a
| disproportionate army of myopic asian (mostly chinese IIRC)
| kids that were spending their entire young lives burried in
| books, way before modern world glued their eyesight to those
| tiny crappy screens.
| Qem wrote:
| Now wonder if Chinese children must spend more time buried
| in books because their writing system is more time-
| demanding to learn (~4000 logograms vs. a few dozens
| letters in languages with alphabetic writing systems).
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > I very much doubt kids 'studying too much' is the problem -
| staring at iphones all day watching tiktok and playing video
| games is more like it.
|
| Civilizational myopia is not a new phenomenon. It is much
| older than iphones or video games.
| grapeskin wrote:
| I'm thinking it's the heavy metal that the rapscallions these
| days are hipping and hopping to.
|
| The reality is near-sightedness is a massive problem in
| countries with insane childhood studying hours, eg all across
| east Asia.
| tootie wrote:
| Staring at a book or a chess set has the exact same effect.
| toastal wrote:
| I bet not long before that the old folks were complaining
| about the kids watching too much TV, reading too many comics,
| or playing too much backgammon.
| wiseowise wrote:
| I spent all my childhood outside and still near-sighted.
| donthellbanme wrote:
| charles_kaw wrote:
| One person's anecdote does not qualify or disqualify a
| concept.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Never said that it disqualifies a concept. Just stating
| that there might be something else, give my anecdote. And
| given amount of upvotes on my comment, I'm not the only
| one.
| sschueller wrote:
| Same and I am very near-sighted.
| chasebank wrote:
| My friend has never had a vaccine and brags he's never gotten
| measles...
| tomp wrote:
| I spent all my childhood (and continuing into adulthood)
| staring at a computer screen and I've 20/20 vision.
| FooHentai wrote:
| Anecdata, but I lived in a low light environment for most of my
| life (North UK), then spend the last ~15 years in a much
| brighter environment (NZ). My prescription has dropped from a
| mid -5 to a low -4 in that time, which is a fairly large and
| uncommon improvement for someone middle aged. The optician put
| it down to where I've been living.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Decreased myopia is very common in middle-aged people. Mine
| went from -2 to 0 in my 40s. I did not move to New Zealand.
| _the_inflator wrote:
| In earlier years, this was correlated with highly giftedness,
| because IQ kids used to suck in more information which means
| reading a lot: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19127804/ ;)
| achenet wrote:
| "nerds wear glasses, study finds"
| solarmist wrote:
| I thought this was relatively well known.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| It'd be interesting if someone could try and relate this
| statistic to the typical solar index for an area -
| https://globalsolaratlas.info/map
|
| I thought it would have been to do with the consumption of
| starches and carbs
| https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2003/sep/21/shoppin...
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| I sometimes wonder if UV protective glasses block some possible
| benefit of UV light to eyes.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| I have often wondered this myself, but the dangers of UV
| light seem to be well documented, with no benefits.
|
| If you wear UV protective glasses most of the time you can
| almost elimate cataracts.
|
| The UV index here in southern Australia tends to be high to
| extreme most days during the warmer months, so I tend to wear
| UV protective sun glasses anytime I'm outside.
| InvaderFizz wrote:
| I'm not sure there are any known benefits that outweigh the
| costs of UV exposure.
|
| That said, there is emerging research that the lack of NIR
| light is very detrimental to all kinds of health
| conditions[0].
|
| Over the past two years, I've moved to ensuring that I get
| plenty of indirect sunlight. As NIR can go through most
| clothing and foliage produced shade, it's quite pleasant and
| relaxing to spend time in it.
|
| I also have large concerns with the move to thermal
| insulation efficiency that we now have. Indoor Air and quite
| easily become stagnant due to lack of outdoor exchange and
| the the low-emissivity glass used in high end windows block
| most NIR. Couple that with a lack of NIR emitters
| (incandescent is gone, camp fires are gone), and I think we
| are in for a world of hurt, even more so than today.
|
| Indoor Air quality can be mostly solved with use of ERVs to
| cycle the air with minimal energy loss.
|
| I'm not sure how you solve for low-emissivity glass other
| than not using it and designing your structure to limit
| direct sunlight exposure for the window itself and use
| shade/curtains/blinds for thermal control when needed.
|
| 0: https://doi.org/10.32794/mr11250016
| rightbyte wrote:
| If this was the case people living far north should be in a
| really bad spot for nearsightness.
|
| Maybe it is that if pupils are outside they focus far away when
| looking up, rather than sun light?
| astrange wrote:
| I think (weakly) the nearsightedness issue is indeed from not
| exercising focusing rather than sunlight.
|
| But apparently there is an issue where mothers with low
| vitamin D in Scandinavia (especially immigrants from sunnier
| places) are more likely to have autistic children.
| nalllar wrote:
| Anecdote, I started fidgeting by varying eye focus and
| depth - can't get forced to sit still if your fidgeting is
| barely perceptible - at a very young age and have the best
| range of accomodation of anyone I know. Can also easily
| perceive chromatic aberration/my eyes needing a different
| focus setting for different wavelengths.
|
| I'd love to know if some sort of focus training exercises
| for eyes starting as children would help everyone.
| gspr wrote:
| Or maybe the effect takes years of sustained lack of light to
| work, and northern summers compensate?
| [deleted]
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://archive.ph/ZuYlY
| kamaal wrote:
| Pretty sure in the recent times COVID has worsened this. I do
| exercise often these days. But its nothing like the morning
| workout, lunch time socialising, and tea time walks with
| colleagues before COVID.
|
| These days apart from the workout in the morning I get no outdoor
| activity, its just staring at every decreasing(sizes of) screens.
| I'm showing early symptoms of Shortsightedness. Several other
| colleagues tell me the same, there's also additional problem of
| people getting obese staying at home.
|
| Though schools have opened. Last two years were equally worse for
| kids, no play, classes on smartphones and laptops.
|
| Humans have not evolved to live like this.
| 0dayz wrote:
| This has me perplexed, if it has to do with sunlight, wouldn't
| then Nordic countries have a very high level of shortsightedness?
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Outdoor activities are very common in Norway winter and summer.
| The skies are often quite clear too.
|
| And, at least where I live, kindergartens have the children
| playing outside most of the time, summer and winter, rain or
| shine.
|
| My impression is that short-sightedness is in fact rarer in
| Norway than in the UK but it's not something I actually have
| statistics for.
|
| I fear that it might be changing now as so many children, boys
| in particular, spend so much time using computers.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Is dopamine playing a role? Like social media use on top of less
| sunlight? Some of the genetics linked to myopia involve dopamine:
|
| https://www.revieweducationgroup.com/ce/how-environment-and-...
|
| "Some of the loci identified include those involved in dopamine
| and light processing. These genetic findings provide further
| support for mechanisms of myopia development involving light
| exposure, defocus and contrast.
|
| Despite these important findings informing potential genetic
| locations and mechanisms of myopia development, these studies
| have identified less than 5% of the variation in refractive error
| due to genetic variants.42 Clearly, the dramatic rise in myopia
| cannot be due to genetics alone, but is likely due to a
| combination of both genetic susceptibility and increased
| environmental triggers."
| xapata wrote:
| But too much sunlight will cause retinal damage. Damned if you
| do, damned if you don't.
| unbad505 wrote:
| It isn't recommended to stare directly at the sun, and I think
| the suggested amount to spend outside each day as a child to
| prevent myopia is ~2 hours, but don't quote me on that.
| cityzen wrote:
| Aulig wrote:
| Honestly, myopia is not complicated (Kepler pretty much had it
| right in 1604 already). There's countless studies showing that
| axial length (eyeball length) changes in both directions, where
| elongation increases myopia. How do you change it? You get
| defocus (blur) which makes the eye adjust in the direction to
| reduce the blur.
|
| Practically: use weaker (around 1.5 diopters) or no glasses
| during close-up work (reading, computer work, smartphones) and
| your regular or .25D weaker glasses for distance vision. Always
| use your full strength glasses for driving and safety critical
| activities.
|
| You can expect around a .75D decrease in myopia per year.
| Personally, I started with around -5.5D and am now (1.5 years
| later) at -2.5D.
|
| Obviously I didn't come up with this myself, there's a huge group
| over at https://endmyopia.org
|
| Don't get put off by the sarcastic tone of the website. Look into
| the studies regarding axial length, pseudomyopia and lens induced
| myopia if you'd like. You can find plenty of studies linked as
| well as the practical steps on endmyopia. Note: You don't have to
| buy the guy's courses, just read his blog and free email guide.
| planarhobbit wrote:
| Hard to believe after all these years EndMyopia is not only
| being promoted on HN, but is consistently one of the most
| upvoted things on the subject. I figured the pros here would
| slice and dice and find issues with the research and
| recommendations and explain in depth why it's snake oil (if it
| is), but it's been a fairly forgiving topic.
| alar44 wrote:
| It's bullshit because there are a ton of reasons why you
| would need corrective vision. This will work for a small
| subset but for most will not. And for those who it does help,
| they'll still need glasses. It's pointless.
| Aulig wrote:
| It's more likely that it works for a large majority. If you
| were born myopic or had an accident or something similar,
| yea it most likely wont work for you. But most myopes do
| not fall in those categories. I'm very open to hearing your
| arguments backing up your statement though.
| alar44 wrote:
| My arguments are that if that were the case, we'd already
| be doing it. I work in the optical industry. To suggest
| that opthalmologists just haven't figured this out yet is
| just pants on head retarded, sorry.
| kinjba11 wrote:
| We live in a world where not long ago smoking was
| considered fine by doctors. Where fat is demonized on
| nutrition labels while obesity surges. Where leaded
| gasoline was banned in gas not that long ago. Where a
| dozen diseases are increasingly prevalent and we have no
| idea why. To suggest that medicine hasn't figured
| something out is completely sensible. It can be argued
| that mRNA vaccine breakthroughs might not have happened
| without COVID, before that we didn't have it figured out.
| How many ophthalmologists are doing research, and how
| many are doing their job and going home because research
| doesn't pay? In every age many are convinced we've
| reached the pinnacle of science and have everything
| figured out, and that is pants on head retarded.
| alar44 wrote:
| There's just no evidence for it. It's that fucking
| simple.
| canjobear wrote:
| There was some good discussion with experts here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31360653
| atombender wrote:
| Is there a single step-by-step guide that shows what to do?
|
| All I can find on that (frankly quite awful) site are ways to
| sign up to a course by email, lots of podcast episodes,
| testimonials for people that improved their eyesight, and
| endless photos of what I assume is the site's creator. The
| "Guides" page doesn't actually have any guides, just more of
| the same.
|
| From what I can tell, the guy really wants to _sell_ you a
| course, but at the same time, they are all "sold out".
| nealabq wrote:
| This probably works for most people. But I've used 2-diopter
| weak glasses for the last 40 years, whenever I'm indoors. I
| think it helped slow the worsening of progression of my
| nearsightedness, but didn't stop it and certainly didn't
| reverse it.
| mattlondon wrote:
| I wonder if indoor lighting at the appropriate temperature would
| help prevent this?
|
| In the UK we don't get a lot of sunlight in the winter months. It
| would be nice to know that we can turn on a "sun lamp" or
| whatever for homework time to help alleviate the issues.
| stevebmark wrote:
| Nope! Myopia isn't related to natural light. It's the eye
| growing in response to over focusing in peripheral vision.
| dheera wrote:
| Is it really an issue though? My glasses have saved me from
| injuries to the eye multiple times by flying objects, I'm
| actually thankful I have them.
| eastbound wrote:
| > In the UK we don't get a lot of sunlight in the winter months
|
| Thus, are more people nearsighted in UK than in the South of
| France?
| kenbolton wrote:
| I wore glasses for a few years in high school because I had
| trouble seeing the blackboard from anywhere but the front row. I
| started hiking and kayaking every day, especially in places where
| I could see for many miles. I also migrated from CRT to LCD to
| LED screens, and more recently to e-ink devices when possible.
| Very fine print in a dark space is hard to read, but I can read a
| moving US license plate from six blocks away. Yesterday I
| recognized a friend a mile and a half away by their paddle-
| stroke. I am able to differentiate a bald eagle from an osprey at
| two miles based on the shape of the wings, and see a fish in
| talons at about a mile. (Friday I observed an osprey dive, catch
| a fish, head towards the nest, then get chased for thirty minutes
| by a bald eagle. Nasty, opportunistic birds, bald eagles. I get
| why Benjamin Franklin held them in such contempt. I lost the pair
| when they went behind a mountain about three miles away.) In
| speaking with ophthalmologists, there is wide support for my
| hypothesis that the near-daily outdoor activity and frequent
| change of focal distance-from a nautical chart on my foredeck to
| the bow wave of a tanker eight miles out-has preserved and likely
| improved my vision. The data: 20/20 in primary school, 20/23 in
| high school, 20/20 during my higher education, and 20/13 and
| improving as I approach retirement. A fun trick is to describe an
| approaching vessel before others have seen it.
| amelius wrote:
| This makes me wonder: is there a lens that you could use
| instead of glasses that will make your computer screen appear
| as if it is further away? Could it help people regain their
| far-sight?
| mrkramer wrote:
| I usually don't agree with The Economist but I agree with them on
| this one, people spend too much time indoor and that's why there
| is an epidemic of shortsightedness.
|
| I would actually call it pandemic because it is affecting all
| developed countries because majority of their workforce works
| indoor and then goes home or to the gym....again indoor
| environment.
| teknopaul wrote:
| I heard it said that it's lack of UV that does the damage,
| glass filters out UV. Sounds like it might be a resolvable
| problem without having kids take class outdoor.
| unbad505 wrote:
| Not a lack of Ultra Violet light, but a lack of Violet light,
| which also needs to be quite bright in order to have a proper
| effect.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8179197/
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5233810/
| mrbonner wrote:
| I paid nearly $1500 for my kid myopia treatment plan: specialized
| drop, checkin every 2 months. Nothing helps. They now recommend I
| do contacts for my 9 year old and I kindly say hell no. I think
| this is scammy at best.
| silisili wrote:
| I feel like this has always been a rather obvious thing...for at
| least what nearly a century or more? The whole trope of glasses
| are for nerds. Kids who spend time reading a ton are nearsighted.
| I understood this in elementary school, when the only kids with
| glasses were the smart ones. (I hated reading, and did not wear
| glasses, so was not a 'smart one').
|
| I became nearsighted not long after getting a home computer, for
| similar reasons. My father, an avid farmer and naturist, is
| farsighted. It seems pretty obvious your eyes adjust to whatever
| you spend all day looking at.
|
| That all said, is it bad? Mine was cured with a rather cheap PRK
| procedure...and I sure wouldn't give up all I've learned for
| perfect natural eyesight.
| watwut wrote:
| If you don't read, you don't need glasses. If you don't use
| glasses and need them, you end up not reading and end up having
| trouble in school - being treated as dumb.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| It was kind of common knowledge that something related to being
| a nerd was causing myopia, but I'd say most people assumed that
| the culprits were things like reading and screens, rather than
| being indoors.
|
| Hindsight is 20/20.
| mattlondon wrote:
| I often thought that glasses and people who do a lot of
| reading etc was a side effect rather than a cause - i.e. that
| people who read more noticed they needed glasses and we're
| happy to wear them, but kids who would rather do sports
| perhaps didn't notice so much and/or were less inclined to
| wear glasses when playing cricket or whatever
| silisili wrote:
| I replied elsewhere...I disagree that light type is the
| culprit. If so, why do people in areas without electricity
| become myopic? That strongly feels like correlation rather
| than causation at its finest.
|
| My brother and I were kids with mostly similar habits. We
| spent a lot playing outside, but he loved reading his
| Goosebump books, while I mainly watched TV at a distance. He
| needed glasses as a kid, and I didn't until we got a computer
| in my teen years. It completely feels like it's a focusing
| distance issue.
| gcbirzan wrote:
| You disagree with science based on a 'feeling'. Myopia in
| children is what we're talking about, and sunlight exposure
| is not the only factor. Similarly, having similar habits
| doesn't mean you will get the same result.
| silisili wrote:
| I get your point, I'm not going to tell you I'm right.
|
| But realize the article says 'researchers think' and
| 'evidence suggests.' Far from proven science. If it's
| more firmly established, I'll gladly admit I'm wrong.
| doliveira wrote:
| The reasoning is supposed to be statistical, so your
| counterpoint "why do people in areas without electricity
| become myopic" doesn't even make sense. A proper
| counterpoint would be "people in areas without electricity
| have the same chance of being myopic as people in areas
| with electricity", and well, data seems pretty clear they
| don't.
| gcbirzan wrote:
| But that's not happens, it's not that your eyes get adjusted to
| only seeing things closer, rather they don't develop well
| unless they are exposed to sunlight. Which just goes to prove
| it hasn't really been obvious all along.
| Lio wrote:
| This is very anecdotal.
|
| I've been using computers since I was 4 years old, starting
| with a Commodore PET.
|
| I'm longsighted, so what do I draw from that?
|
| Only that we should use stats properly lest we become
| superstitious.
| GordonS wrote:
| As another single data point, I started using a Commodore 64
| when I was 5 years old, and have been besotted with computers
| ever since.
|
| 35 years on, and my eyesight somehow still remains fine - I'm
| slightly short sighted in one eye, slightly long sighted in
| the other (how does that even happen?!), but opticians always
| say I don't need glasses.
|
| I think you're right - there are simply way too many factors
| to control for, and statistics is the way.
| just-tom wrote:
| As I suggested in the past, it would be helpful to add [PAYWALL]
| before or after titles for links that have a paywall.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Well, it's The Economist, very evident in the title line (it
| would be news if they removed the protection). And,
| incidentally but importantly, it uses a "payfence", not really
| a paywall.
| tominous wrote:
| Almost all children are born hypermetropic (far-sighted). The
| growth of the eyeball is calibrated by the amount of defocus
| (blur) experienced. More defocus, more growth, which reduces
| hypermetropia.
|
| My hypothesis is that less sunlight means wider pupils and more
| defocus (contrast to a pinhole camera), so more eye growth.
|
| Even with perfect eyesight, there's a 2-diopter difference
| between focussing blue light and red light due to chromatic
| aberration. Only narrow pupils can reduce this blur in white
| light.
|
| I'm also curious whether older TVs with big blurry pixels (or low
| res images upscaled and smeared onto newer screens) trigger the
| same mechanism. These days I certainly feel physically
| uncomfortable looking at media like that, like my eyes aren't
| focussing quite right.
|
| The other problem is that once eyes have grown too long and are
| myopic (near-sighted) they experience even more defocus and grow
| more. See for example [1] which discusses how _under-correction_
| of myopia accelerates progression.
|
| [1] https://reviewofmm.com/does-the-undercorrection-of-myopia-
| in...
| Hellicio wrote:
| Mine is genetic.
|
| I have very similiar values than my mother.
|
| So i'mnot sure if / how your theory is correct or not.
|
| Also there are a lot of normal people in the world who live
| outside and also don't have perfect eye sight at all. This goes
| back a long time.
|
| Can you also elaborate on your 2 diopter difference between red
| and blue light? For one i find that number very very big but
| i'm very good in seeing full color without any chromatic
| aberration.
|
| The effect of your theory would need to be less relevant than
| other factors.
| modeless wrote:
| Genes can cause or prevent myopia. However, genes do not
| spread rapidly and therefore cannot cause an epidemic.
| Obviously environmental factors are the major cause.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Mine is genetic.
|
| > I have very simil[a]r values than my mother.
|
| Well, everything is genetic. The amount of sunlight you're
| exposed to is no less a genetic effect than how tall you grow
| to be. Without genes, you wouldn't have any behaviors or
| phenotypes at all.
|
| So the interesting question is not "is this phenomenon
| genetic?", because the answer to that is always "yes". The
| interesting question is "what can influence this
| phenomenon?". In this case, we already know that (1) within a
| given culture, genetics are a strong predictor for myopia;
| and (2) once you do a cross-cultural comparison, the effect
| of culture absolutely overwhelms genetic measurements. Most
| people who become nearsighted in modern cultures would never
| become nearsighted in premodern cultures.
| throwaway202022 wrote:
| This is 100% true. Genetic predisposition to something !=
| inevitability.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| All of my immediate family members need glasses but me,
| which is pretty interesting.
| tchvil wrote:
| My wife is -3 myopic, I'm -6 from childhood. And our 3
| kids of 19, 17 and 10, have all a perfect sight.
|
| They went outside often but nothing extreme. We have big
| luminous windows. And they spend a fair amount of time on
| screens too.
|
| It can be so multifactorial, I have no idea why this
| luck. As I was convinced they would all wear glasses.
| tominous wrote:
| Not denying that there are many ways in which development can
| go wrong, whether that's genetic or the environment. What I'm
| responding to is the sudden change seen in many populations
| as per the article.
|
| Re: the chromatic aberration spread, see e.g.
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3716229/
|
| They measured 1.82 diopters between 420nm and 660nm. Visible
| light is a bit wider, 380nm to 720nm, so 2 diopters is about
| right.
|
| You easily can see this in a dark data centre. If your vision
| is perfectly corrected (which normally means perfect for red-
| green light) you won't be able to focus on a blue LED unless
| you are about 50cm away.
| californical wrote:
| Huh, I always wondered why blue LEDs that were further away
| would be hard to look at & make me dizzy, that's crazy!
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Something like this is beginning to be accepted. At least
| that's the impression I got from the eye doctor when I had PRK
| surgery. FWIW I had 20/15 vision until starting college and
| consequently being indoors in the dark much more often (staying
| up late to program).
| geoffmanning wrote:
| I read the title and immediately agreed, but i had misinterpreted
| "short-sightedness" as the inability to consider the long-term
| effects of our choices and habits, at least to the effect of
| making positive changes, rather than the ocular deficiency.
| baron816 wrote:
| The Economist has another article this week that's basically
| about that: https://www.economist.com/united-
| states/2022/06/09/miamis-su.... It's about Miami and how local,
| county, State, and Federal governments are just totally
| incapable of planning long term for climate change.
| [deleted]
| tharne wrote:
| > I read the title and immediately agreed, but i had
| misinterpreted "short-sightedness" as the inability to consider
| the long-term effects of our choices and habits
|
| I had the exact same reaction, and was genuinely surprised when
| I clicked through.
| xiamx wrote:
| Same. And opening the page and seeing that it talks about
| myopia is a surprise
| mathgeek wrote:
| First I have ever encountered the term used in this context.
| Have always understood it to be near-sightedness, but that may
| just be cultural.
| jacobolus wrote:
| _Short-sighted_ , _near-sighted_ , and _myopic_ mean the same
| thing. Both _short-sighted_ and _myopic_ are often used
| figuratively (to mean acting on short-term interests without
| considering long-term effects) while _near-sighted_ seldom
| is.
| productk wrote:
| The same, only reason I clicked the link.
| qiskit wrote:
| DharmaPolice wrote:
| The Economist is a British publication and in the UK we use
| "shortsighted" more than "nearsighted"
|
| E.g. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/short-sightedness/
| qiskit wrote:
| Don't care. It's a global publication. America sets the
| standard in english so use the standard. That goes for
| spelling 'favor/labor/etc' correctly.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I guess the geniuses at the economist don't know the
| difference between being shortsighted and being nearsighted
|
| It's funny when people who speak American mock the British
| for speaking English instead.
| higgins wrote:
| Strategic title to get more clicks
| lemoncucumber wrote:
| How myopic of you
| kosyblysk666 wrote:
| no, the real epidemic is MENTAL shortsightedness
| underwater wrote:
| My child is following in my footsteps and has been prescribed
| glasses for nearsightedness. Her optometrist told us she should
| be watching TV rather than reading books. This was both
| surprising and upsetting, especially since she loves reading.
|
| This lead me on an interesting deep dive into existing research.
| What surprised me were the massive gaps in understanding.
| Scientist have _at best_ established correlation between close up
| work and nearsightedness, and a negative correlation with
| spending time outside. The actual mechanism in play is unknown,
| for example the theories about sunlight are still untested. The
| specific types of close up work that cause issues is unknown.
| Some scientists have proposed that it 's the contrast between
| white pages and black text that actually causes issues with
| reading.
|
| My conclusion was that anyone who confidently asserts that $x
| causes nearsightedness is wrong (this thread is a case in point).
| trashface wrote:
| After being diagnosed with glaucoma I did a fair amount reading
| about that condition. My conclusion is that aside from some
| specific cases (head/eye injury) nobody really knows what
| causes it, there are probably multiple reasons, it could be a
| downstream effect from other health problems, and there just
| isn't a lot of research to sort it out.
|
| Cynically, I feel like there is a lot of money being made just
| by treating eye disorders the same way its been done for
| decades. For example, right now, the main treatment I use for
| glaucoma is eye drops, which is the same treatment given to my
| grandmother when she was diagnosed in the 1960s. And those
| drops are not covered by insurance, rather expensive, and I
| have to take them every day forever, along with twice a year
| eye exams and visual field tests.
| nealabq wrote:
| In my nearsighted family (parents, 2 kids) we've concluded that
| reading printed-pages makes you get nearsighted faster than
| reading words on a computer screen.
|
| This seems to work for us. Don't know about anyone else. I'm
| very nearsighted (-14 diopters), but I grew up reading books on
| paper.
| lupire wrote:
| Cast ebook to TV.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| I'm not going to speculate on the exact cause but I'm
| comfortable saying children should have 2-3 recess periods
| outside totalling at least an hour (preferably 2 or 3) and that
| the recess periods should be structured to ensure that children
| spend time focusing on a variety of things at a variety of
| distances. There's certainly a possibility this won't have the
| intended effect but it will doubtlessly have a lot of net good
| effects assuming air quality cooperates.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| Sunlight onbthe retina helps form Serotonin. Has to be direct
| or through eyelids, not through any glass. A doctor told me a
| leading theory about how outside time helps is by shifting
| focus from faraway to close and back. So look at things up at
| top of buildings or upper canopy of trees then into some nearby
| detail back and forth my. It's a kind of excersize for eye
| focus. My son's eyes have held close to 20/20 into High School.
| We have good views for this from our apartment. I've taught him
| to check cornices and close details as he walks to and from
| school.
| atlgator wrote:
| Read the headline and thought the article would be about
| something different. How ironic.
| mikewarot wrote:
| Pet peeve about language use:
|
| I thought it was obvious that short-sightedness (Exclusively
| Short term thinking) is an epidemic, nobody on Wall Street can
| see past the next Quarter's numbers. I don't need the economist
| to point that out.
|
| Nearsightedness is what this article is about... a completely
| different thing. I've dealt with that my entire life... and just
| went through the knock-on effect of retina detachment, and
| surgery to correct the same. Having a bubble of C3F8 gas in your
| one good eye is pretty damned effective at taking you out of
| commission for about 4 months. Looking down hurts! I hope to be
| up and about, and able to drive again by the start of September,
| once the bubble has gone, my eye has stabilized, the surgeon has
| made a final check, and finally after I get new glasses.
|
| I strongly suspect the amount of light outdoors is NOT really the
| issue. If you're always focused on things close at hand (as the
| above mentioned folks on wall street), you never allow the eyes
| to focus on the far horizon for an appreciable fraction of the
| time.
|
| I'm surprised to learn that there's no consensus on how the eye
| actually focuses on objects at various distances[1]. It is also
| well know that the smaller an iris in a camera (or eye), the
| larger the range of distances that appear in focus. It seems
| reasonable to me that if you spend your time looking at only
| nearby objects (like above mentioned Wall Street residents),
| you'll lose the ability to see things further out that might be
| coming to get you.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accommodation_(eye)
| danielfoster wrote:
| I also made the same mistake and assumed the article was about
| shortsighted thinking. But I've also always found the term
| "nearsighted" to be very confusing as well. I always confuse
| the meaning with "farsighted," ie not being able to see things
| near you.
| Angostura wrote:
| Would that pet peeve be regarding British publications using
| British English? https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/short-
| sightedness/
| bigmealbigmeal wrote:
| > _I strongly suspect the amount of light outdoors is NOT
| really the issue. If you 're always focused on things close at
| hand (as the above mentioned folks on wall street), you never
| allow the eyes to focus on the far horizon for an appreciable
| fraction of the time._
|
| Then you need to read more on the matter.
|
| Studies on chicks, tree shrews and rhesus monkeys show that
| simply increasing the amount of indoor light intensity has a
| protective effect on myopia. Scientists can induce more myopia
| in chicks simply by reducing light intensity. See
| https://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2164963
| and
| https://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2355431
|
| The leading hypothesis is that light stimulates the release of
| dopamine in the retina, and the dopamine blocks the elongation
| of the eye during development. One study showed that injecting
| a dopamine-inhbiting drug into the eyes of chicks abolished the
| protective effect of bright light, and myopia increased. See
| https://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2126968
|
| Your particular confidence on this ("strongly suspect") bothers
| me because it has an influence on others, yet it is totally
| ignorant of what current scientific findings suggest.
| mikewarot wrote:
| All of the experiments you mentioned happened indoors. How
| can you have far field (> 100 meters distant) objects inside
| a laboratory? None of those experiments rule out my
| hypothesis.
| cassandratt wrote:
| Does it? This isn't a scientific journal, nor is this a hard
| science forum. So the expectations that a layman conform to
| the standards of a field to have a conversation about a
| fairly esoteric subject is asinine.
|
| I can't know the top science in every field, so that bars me
| from discussion, lest I be slammed for having a thought.
|
| This isn't just anti-science, it's ignorant of social
| interactions, and the conversations that lead to greater
| understanding. You aren't nearly as smart as you think you
| are.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _nobody on Wall Street can see past the next Quarter 's
| numbers. I don't need the economist to point that out._
|
| This funny to read on a tech oriented website.
|
| I agree that the quarter by quarter financial goals _can_ be a
| "shortsighted", and I think the problem is even worse when it
| comes to the 4 year political cycle (2 years if you consider
| the fact the Houses can change hands).
|
| But Wall Street is _still_ filled to the brim with public
| companies espousing some future fantasy profits that may or may
| not _ever_ come. We are as far away from shortsightedness there
| as we 've ever been. One only has to looks at ARKK research to
| see this.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| From an optical perspective, focusing on something a few meters
| away is basically infinity for the eye. Even indoors you do
| that a lot, which makes the "focus close -> loose infinity"
| theory less plausible compared to light levels, which we know
| have a very significant impact on the whole body. Focusing very
| closely all the time (again, optically speaking, a screen 1
| meter away is closer to infinitely far away than to a
| smartphone in the face) might do and explain something.
| msk-lywenn wrote:
| I have very bad eyesight too. May I ask what is your
| correction? (Not sure it's the proper word in English, but the
| thing measured in dioptres?)
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Not him, but myopia is the correct medical term. It only has
| one meaning, whereas "short-sighted" has a widely used
| metaphorical meaning that it is easily confused with.
| teamonkey wrote:
| 'Myopic' is certainly used to describe short-term thinking
| or a restricted viewpoint
| shellac wrote:
| From very start of the article: "Leaders | What to do about
| myopia".
|
| However 'myopic' is certainly used metaphorically. This is
| one of those cases where you just have to read the article.
| mattnewton wrote:
| I would find "Near sightedness less ambiguous, in
| American English at least. I can't remember having heard
| that used for anything other than a physical difficulty
| to focus your eyes at longer distances.
| hammock wrote:
| msk wanted to know thethe guy's prescription
| xioxox wrote:
| Short-sightedness is the eye problem in British English:
| https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/short-sightedness/ We also use
| long-sightedness.
| veltas wrote:
| Funny you say that because I'm British and only hear and say
| "near-sightedness". I certainly wouldn't be offended by
| "short-sighted" but instead confused because it has dual
| meanings.
| dhzhzjsbevs wrote:
| It's not really a dual meaning, shortsighted in relation to
| thinking is a metaphor.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| Yes, that's the definition I've always held. Had 20-20 vision
| but through working online (and likely smoking) my vision is
| not 20-20 any more. Short sighted, long sighted - is a bit
| counter intuitive but covers it.
| alexalx666 wrote:
| It's very true that there is nothing to focus on that is
| further than the next tall building in that area, add it to
| looking at the screen like its life or death all day
| robinduckett wrote:
| This feeds into my pet peeve that Americans assume the world
| revolves around them and that all use of non American English
| is invalid despite the stereotype being that British English
| speaking people are worse for this.
| inopinatus wrote:
| I believe there is a Will Self story in which a geological
| probe reaches the Earth's core and finds the compressed
| remains of an American around whom the planet is in fact
| revolving.
| starkd wrote:
| You need not be disturbed by this. Every nation/culture tends
| to think in terms of the world "revolving" around them. A
| people need a frame of reference to view the world that is
| provided by one's culture. I don't think the OP intented to
| treat British English as inferior or invalid.
| jaqalopes wrote:
| It's not so much invalid as confusing. For Americans to call
| someone "shortsighted" has a well-known usage and negative
| connotation about their intellectual integrity. As someone
| who had never encountered the British usage prior to this
| headline, I don't think it's out of line to remark on this as
| a weird curiosity of our shared (but also frequently as in
| this case not shared) language.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| the definition it's literally in every American dictionary
| though
| JoBrad wrote:
| I am from the US, and have heard "shortsighted" used as a
| synonym for "myopia" all my life. "Nearsighted" is more common,
| but not exclusive to non-US English. Wikipedia backs up the
| idea that they are all synonyms, as well.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myopia
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > Pet peeve about language use
|
| My first thought was about shortsightedness as the medical
| issue.
|
| because that's what the term means
|
| _short-sightedness_
|
| _noun: shortsightedness_
|
| _the quality of being short-sighted; inability to see things
| clearly unless they are relatively close to the eyes._
|
| AKA _myopia_
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| _moof wrote:
| _> I thought it was obvious that short-sightedness (Exclusively
| Short term thinking) is an epidemic, nobody on Wall Street can
| see past the next Quarter 's numbers. I don't need the
| economist to point that out. Nearsightedness is what this
| article is about... a completely different thing._
|
| Is it ironic or just poetic that this is a myopic take on the
| meaning of the word "shortsighted"?
| martyvis wrote:
| Sorry, but in Australian English, those with myopia are always
| referred to as being short-sighted. The metaphor, having lack
| of foresight, is also referred to by the same expression.
| eastbound wrote:
| Why can we have 2-lense glasses that move the focus to infinity?
|
| ELI5: In opticals, "rays" coming from a near object (=mobile
| phone) are angled, while rays coming from afar (=end of a
| landscape) are parallel. The job of pupils is to bend the rays
| from the focal point ahead to the focal point on the receptors in
| the eye. The eye is a rest when looking afar, because rays come
| parallel, and thus there isn't much to do. The eye is strained
| when trying to focus one something closer.
|
| I've always wondered why we all had that UV filter on screens and
| never took care of making the rays from the computer screen
| parallel, using a lense.
| tmplurkr wrote:
| How would it work? Where would you put the two lenses?
| Consider:
|
| - You can't really have two lenses cemented together. That'll
| correct for chromatic aberration but, other than that, the
| lenses would behave as one (except for deviations from thin
| lens approx.)
|
| - You can't have glasses mounting two lenses "d" apart for two
| reasons. 1) Having parallel lenses would terribly
| uncomfortable, heavy, and awkward 2) More importantly your eye
| and the two lenses would never be aligned (as soon as you move
| your focus away from the one spot the glasses were aligned for,
| the optical system performance would collapse)
|
| - The best you could do, then, is contact lenses + eyeglasses.
| But then you have all the bother of wearing glasses and
| eyeglasses. Also, it's not obvious to me it would work since
| the contact lenses are in contact with your cornea, the pair
| behaving like a single lens.
| mgdlbp wrote:
| I think GP is mistaken about two physical lenses being needed
| (until it's the future and we're all wearing expensive smart
| glasses, in which case you do want an additional
| interchangeable lens for this purpose). When _designing_ the
| system, it can be thought of as a lens that corrects for
| refractive error of the relaxed eye (moving the eye 's far
| point to infinity) stacked on top of another lens that makes
| light coming from an object parallel (producing an image of
| the object at infinity for the first lens and eye to
| receive); to _implement_ it, you only need one lens with the
| combined power of the two.
|
| Edit: GP might also be talking about eyeglasses with
| adjustable focus, which apparently are already available.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjustable-focus_eyeglasses
| occamrazor wrote:
| Assuming that it's technically practical, the results would be
| very unsettling: the phone screen would look like a window with
| the content "behind " the window, very far away.
| saurik wrote:
| I doubt that effect would be very strong as the effect of a
| magic eye massively dominates any feeling we have to notice
| that our eyes aren't having to do as much of whatever you'd
| call this lensing work.
| eastbound wrote:
| ...But geometric aberrations might be annoying: The image
| is perfect in the center but blurry/rainbowed 10deg from
| the center, etc.
| mjay23 wrote:
| I think you get the effect you desire by wearing glasses with +
| when in front of a computer. anecdote: i started with -0.5
| (10-15 years ago), per ophthalmologist "advice" wore glasses
| all the time (including computer), got to -1.75. then one
| summer spent some time without any glasses (just because i
| wanted to use the sunglasses) and at the end of the summer the
| vision went back to -1.50. This got me thinking that wearing
| glasses all the time is not that good. 4 months ago started to
| experiment, no glasses all the time and +0.5 when in front of
| the computer. Started with -1.25, and now I am at -0.50/-0.75
| ... take it as you want.
| geeB wrote:
| You can do that cheaply by picking up a pair of reading
| glasses, or glasses with lower power if you are already
| nearsighted. Roughly, infinity will be at 1/diopters in meters,
| so +0.5 glasses will make 2m away at infinity, +1.0 at 1m, and
| so on, and similarly if you are at -3, -2.5 will make 2m
| infinity, etc. It's not exact because they are not thin lenses
| and there is a separation between lens and eye, but it should
| be pretty close.
|
| I've been using one less diopter correction for a while most of
| the time, with an additional pair of glasses with the full
| prescription for driving. Not sure if it does anything or my
| nearsightedness just naturally stopped progressing though, but
| since it's working and not bothering me I have no interest in
| finding out.
| mgdlbp wrote:
| You and I and a few others around the web all have had this
| idea of making screens look farther away, by changing focus
| with positive lenses and and binocular convergence using
| prisms. I actually wrote this comment with the math for
| determining the required prescription (since you can simply
| order them online) just a month ago.[1] I then found that the
| concept isn't uncommon when I discovered an older comment with
| the same idea, which I've misplaced, but a search turns up
| another thread revealing that this already exists as a product
| marketed for gaming.[2]
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31349629
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21742229
| sbf501 wrote:
| Around 1995 I wrote a DirectDraw text-editor that would
| render two images and force you to defocus your eyes like the
| op-art-3d puzzles: making the viewer have to focus far away.
| It worked for images but not for reading small text.
| JackMorgan wrote:
| You might enjoy checking out https://endmyopia.org/
|
| There's calculators on his site also for astigmatism. I think
| also a list of optometrists who will understand if you want
| weaker lenses.
| mgdlbp wrote:
| Good info on refractive error there, though I don't see
| much on prism lenses used for this purpose. While
| searching, I did discover this book, the _Myopia Manual_ ,
| which they're hosting a copy of. It looks quite thorough
| and does have a chapter on using prisms to match vergence
| with accommodation in plus lenses. The book also has its
| own site http://www.myopia-manual.de/
|
| I also found an older myopia submission where a comment
| links several related sites.[1] frauenfeldclinic.com now
| redirects to endmyopia.org; archive.org confirms that the
| old domain was the same site, but oddly the new domain has
| an exclusion applied. As one reply noted, myopia.org really
| is an excellent display of the Time Cube design
| language.[2]
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9230093
|
| [2] http://www.myopia.org/conspirators.htm
| Aulig wrote:
| There's people in the endmyopia forum using base in prism
| with their plus lenses - look for espantoso and nycmao :)
|
| Personally, I just use plus lenses without prism.
| drited wrote:
| I'm hopeful that the shift to VR from PC gaming and perhaps also
| office productivity will help with myopia. Might seem counter-
| intuitive given the VR lens is next to the eye but focus in VR is
| in the distance. Even productivity in VR is usually done on huge
| screens further away from the user than traditions pc screens.
| hk1337 wrote:
| The different usage of words and their meanings in English is
| interesting and makes me think this weird miscommunication is why
| we have so many arguments. In my everyday, the article would be
| referring to nearsightedness, short sighted would be when someone
| doesn't think through all the possible things, lacking foresight.
| By definition it's both but in every day use it's not.
| ultra_nick wrote:
| Homographs are a pain for natural language processing.
|
| Homophones are a pain for us bad spellers.
| martyvis wrote:
| In everyday use in this part of the world you never hear the
| word near-sighted. In Australia and I think a lot of other
| British English countries, short-sighted is the plain English
| term for myopic. (But the thing is most of us know that the US
| uses the other term)
| zymhan wrote:
| Yeah, given that this is an Economist article, I assumed they
| meant "lack of foresight", since they often write similar
| titles
| wrycoder wrote:
| That's the article I was expecting, also. Lack of foresight
| these days is a serious problem - with the mis-education
| current in the US, the younger cohorts are losing the
| historical perspective developed so painfully over the last
| four thousand years. What to do is not so important as what
| not to do.
| ldx1024 wrote:
| It may just be a pet peeve, but it rankles me a bit when the term
| "epidemic" is used to describe widespread conditions that are not
| communicable/infectuous. Looking at the dictionary it appears the
| usage here is legitimate, but my guess would be that it is a
| misuse that has become accepted, like using the term "begging the
| question" to mean suggesting the question.
| watwut wrote:
| Given that it was used this way consistently for over hundred
| years including back in Homer text, one could argue it is not
| misuse at all.
|
| Medicine started to use already existing word, which is fine,
| but it does not mean original meaning must be erased.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| The medical use is not strictly tied to infection, as the OP
| would have expected. In Hippocrates, "epidemic" vs "endemic"
| is akin to "temporary" vs "permanent".
|
| Please do also see the sibling post from member 'one-more-
| minute'.
| lock-the-spock wrote:
| I don't know about shortsightedness but for instance obesity is
| a legitimate epidemic. Whipe it is behavioural it is well known
| that social groups influence each other on this, so like a
| virus it spreads between people. The same may be true for
| shortsightedness too to some degree.
| one-more-minute wrote:
| Epidemiologists study health at the population level in
| general, not just communicable diseases. So at least in that
| sense the "epidemi-" prefix isn't limited to infection. Is
| there any better term for a health issue with rapidly
| increasing prevalence?
|
| A dictionary of medicine from 1882 suggests that common usage
| of the word has become more narrow, not less, and that there
| was some level of debate about the technical meaning [1].
| Stedman's Medical Dictionary (1920) gives a more modern
| definition, "a disease attacking nearly simultaneously a large
| number of people", without restriction to infectious diseases.
|
| [1]
| https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_Dictionary_of_Medic...
| HidyBush wrote:
| >but it rankles me a bit when the term "epidemic" is used to
| describe widespread conditions that are not
| communicable/infectuous
|
| but short sightedness caused by lack of sunlight exposure _is_
| infectuous.
|
| why do you think kids are being kept at home? because of their
| parents. and why do the parents keep them at home? because of a
| cultural and societal shift in behavior. and why is this shift
| happening? because some ideas floating around have infected a
| large enough number of people.
|
| human ideas (or memes if you like) are _precisely_ like
| viruses, and if short-sightedness is caused by some ideas being
| spread then it 's no different than it being an actual virally
| caused disease.
| simonh wrote:
| All novel linguistic constructs are 'misuses' in some sense or
| another that have become accepted.
|
| In this case that's not so though, the etymology is from the
| Greek '(upon|near|against) the people, and does not necessarily
| refer only to disease.
| Asraelite wrote:
| Etymology in interesting, but has almost zero relevance in
| determining how acceptable a use of a word is.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| You should probably leave it to the Academies, given that
| others take the opposite general stance.
|
| What the server /accepts/ is left to configuration (some
| still recommend, "Strict in formulating the output, loose
| in interpreting the input"). What is "legitimate" is
| another matter, and will have to consider the term's
| curriculum, also because other proposals are faulty (e.g.
| conventionalism: "/whose/ convention?").
| simonh wrote:
| That's precisely the point of the first line of my comment.
| Asraelite wrote:
| Oh sorry, I misinterpreted.
| ldx1024 wrote:
| The term does appear to have a long history. This source
| states that using it as a term for widespread non-infectuous
| conditions is relatively recent:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3373038/#!po=96.
| ..
| occamschainsaw wrote:
| I agree, the usage of the word "epidemic" has become an
| epidemic.
| [deleted]
| jedberg wrote:
| When I was a kid, we had a "no TV when the sun is up" rule. That
| included computer screens, which were literally TVs when I was a
| kid. Of course I violated that rule when my parents weren't
| looking, but for the most part I spent a lot of time playing
| outside, especially in summer.
|
| This is of course anecdotal, but I'm 45 and still don't need
| glasses.
|
| I'm trying to do the same with my kids, but sometimes it's just
| too easy to hand them an iPad when I want to get something
| done....
| lisper wrote:
| When I was a kid we didn't have a computer. Home computers
| didn't exist until I was in my teens. We had one 12-inch black-
| and-white TV that received four channels when the rabbit ears
| were set up properly. I spent a lot of time outdoors.
|
| This is of course anecdotal, but I have needed glasses since
| before fifth grade.
|
| (I got my first pair of glasses in fifth grade, but in
| retrospect it was clear that I needed them much earlier. I can
| still vividly remember the first I ever tried on my new glasses
| and being astounded at the level of visual detail that existed
| in the world. Stars! Leaves on trees! Wow! I had no idea.)
| wrycoder wrote:
| When I was a kid, we didn't have TV, and computers had just
| been invented.
|
| But, I read a lot, often in bed at close distance, and I was
| astigmatic and near-sighted when I was young. Now, I'm mostly
| just astigmatic and presbyoptic.
| fillerInk wrote:
| Not just with light, spending more time indoors means kids don't
| have to focus their eyes on longer distances these days. There
| would be a correlation between the amount of time spent indoors
| during the formative years and the chances of becoming myopic in
| the future.
| silisili wrote:
| Agreed. My wife had no electricity for her child life, but is
| nearsighted... probably from reading books all the time as a
| kid. I don't believe that light has anything to do with it.
| stevenhuang wrote:
| You don't think reading in a low light environment has
| anything to do with it...?
| stevebmark wrote:
| It's not related to light, it's related to over focusing,
| especially in peripheral vision. Keeping things close to
| the face keeps things in focus, making the eye thinking
| it's over focused, so it grows longer to defocus. It's
| called emmetropization and it's how the eye grows.
| spiffytech wrote:
| In my early teens I had 20/15 vision. By the time I went to
| college I was wearing glasses for nearsightedness.
|
| I'm pretty sure it's because I got interested in computers, and
| started spending all day staring 3ft ahead instead of glancing
| around outdoors.
|
| Some friends in my computer science program passed around each
| other's glasses and found we all had nearly the same
| prescription. That didn't seem like a coincidence.
| underwater wrote:
| There are also theories that the cause and effect are actually
| in the other direction: kids with poor distance vision are more
| likely to spend time reading and studying rather than be
| outside playing sports.
| hbarka wrote:
| Mudslides cause rain
| plonk wrote:
| I spent 10 hours a day on computers when I wasn't at school
| during middle school. Started at the end of primary school and
| continued until now. I pass the letter-reading tests at the GP
| when I'm not too tired, so I think I have pretty good vision.
|
| Maybe that's because I didn't always have a computer nearby and
| had to spend time outside too as a kid.
| cozzyd wrote:
| I still have 20/15 vision at 35, despite probably averaging
| over 8 hours a day staring at computer screens for over 2/3 of
| my life... But maybe I'd have superhuman vision otherwise?
| 300bps wrote:
| I got my first computer at 10, was 20/40 vision at 16 and am
| probably around 20/80 right not.
|
| Honestly I'm glad that I am now that I'm in my 40s. Without
| glasses or contacts, I can read something right up against my
| nose. Makes it so much easier to work on electronics and other
| small items - I just take my glasses off and I see up close
| perfectly well.
| _uy6i wrote:
| Gross generalization, but my suspicion is that it's not the all
| day staring at computer (that's most adults these days) but
| also many CS types spend their free time in front of a screen
| as well...
| lupire wrote:
| C types, not CS types.
| t_von_doom wrote:
| I wonder how much that might be explained by variance around
| the mean
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That may just be lucky coincidence. I've been a computer nerd
| spending way too many hours in front of my computer since I was
| a teen. Last eye exam I had was a few years back when I turned
| 45. 20/20 in one eye, but after I made a remark about having
| been 20/15 when younger, the tech said "let's try!" and I could
| still do it. Barely. In only one eye now. But still, after all
| these years.
|
| But really it's presbyopia that's bothered me. I'm glad my
| distance vision is great, but the loss of close-up focus is
| massively inconvenient. Reading glasses make me want to throw
| up within a matter of minutes. Not sure what my long term plan
| is aside from suffer.
| moron4hire wrote:
| Use a large screen TV as your computer monitor, placed far
| away from you.
| satellite2 wrote:
| You get used to the distortion pretty quickly. Otherwise you
| can invest in more expensive exams/glasses that correct for
| it.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| https://archive.is/4i9OA
| sandstrom wrote:
| For several decades it has been known that myopia
| (nearsightedness) and intelligence are correlated[1][2].
| Initially it was speculated that reading caused nearsightedness,
| and through that higher intelligence. There is probably some
| truth to that.
|
| But with modern DNA sequencing techniques researches has found
| genes that seem to affect both[3][4].
|
| The hypothesis is that one (or a set of) genes affects both eye
| size growth (myopia is often caused by the eye being "too long")
| and neocortical size (associated with intelligence).
|
| Although this probably won't surprise anyone in this research
| field, I recently read about it -- with my non-nearsighted eyes
| :) -- and found it interesting. So I wanted to share, since it's
| somewhat related to this topic.
|
| [1]
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaophthalmology/article-a...
|
| [2] https://europepmc.org/article/med/2904062
|
| [3] https://www.nature.com/articles/srep45977
|
| [4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19127804/
| viktoracoric wrote:
| EnKopVand wrote:
| The beauty of science is that you don't have to "believe" in
| it.
| volfied wrote:
| The beauty of science is that you don't "blindly believe"
| in it.
| Izkata wrote:
| Plenty of people do blindly believe it (hence the
| catchphrase "believe science"). Best to combine your two
| statements: you don't have to "blindly believe" in it.
| nend wrote:
| That's the cool thing about science, it can't be refuted by
| one person's anecdotal experiences.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Science is the adaptive theoretical system digesting
| anomalies.
| zackees wrote:
| This. I realized that it wasn't necessarily genetic I may
| just have my monitor too close. I swapped it for a 70inch 4k
| monitor/tv six feet away and my eyesight improved by a
| quarter point over the next year.
| yial wrote:
| Number 3 is interesting , it's a twin study. I still have to
| read more, but their best fit model has the same p value as
| storks delivering babies, if that helps you.
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227763292_Storks_De.
| ..
|
| Edit: I do wonder how some recent studies on myopia fit in
| with these other findings:
|
| " The decrease in heritability and the increased myopia
| prevalence in our sample may not be related to the age of the
| sample, but with the year of birth and the changes in the
| environment in what these subjects developed during the last
| two decades. Due to the higher academic skills of our study
| population, it can be considered that they have been highly
| exposed to one of the myopia risks factors related to abuse
| of near work and large periods exposed to low luminance
| environments11,19,20. Many studies showed an increasing trend
| of myopia incidence as we are approaching the era of modern
| industrialization along with increasing education
| level3,11,19,20. The older twin sample34 had in average a
| lower education level and possibly less prolonged near task.
| This may signify the connection of these trends with our
| obtained results with greater environmental influence on
| refractive error variance among studied millennials. The
| change in myopia prevalence is happening across the last few
| decades, where the increased offset cannot be explained by a
| change on genetic factors, as genetic evolution cannot take
| place in such short time span. On the other hand, less than
| 10% of the variance of refraction could be accounted for
| Genome-wide studies, where studies have identified, so far,
| more than 150 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)
| associated with myopia44. Alternatively, the high
| heritability of refractive error observed in most of the twin
| studies can be a result of heritability overestimation by the
| classical twin study model. From any perspective, we must
| understand that heritability is the combined result of
| genotype and environment on a certain phenotypic trait.
| Hence, it appears that the sudden increase in myopia
| prevalence is a result of higher interaction with the
| environment."
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65130-w
| nickbauman wrote:
| I thought the increase in nearsightedness originated in kids
| not playing outside as much (and thereby not focusing their
| eyes over longer distances) resulting in eyesight that's more
| attuned to shorter distances.
| stevebmark wrote:
| This is correct and how myopia works. Not because of an
| increase in natural light. There's ample evidence for this.
| dsego wrote:
| I've read that the amount of natural light is important, and
| that the light inside buildings and houses is not sufficient.
| Children should spend more hours outside.
| bombcar wrote:
| If you have a light meter (on a camera or phone or
| standalone) it's amazing how "dim" even the brightest
| indoor lights are.
|
| Full flood wash on a stage is nothing compared to the power
| of the sun.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Some example values here
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lux#Illuminance
|
| Office lighting: 250-500
|
| Direct sunlight: 32,000-100,000
| delecti wrote:
| At least if wikipedia's summary is to be believed, that's one
| of the less supported of many potential theories.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myopia#Environmental_factors
|
| Their summary seems to suggest that the biggest factor is
| exposure to daylight. So then even reading outside ought
| theoretically protect against nearsightedness.
| sumy23 wrote:
| > People, and children especially, who spend more time
| doing physical exercise and outdoor play have lower rates
| of myopia,[30][29][31][32][33] suggesting the increased
| magnitude and complexity of the visual stimuli encountered
| during these types of activities decrease myopic
| progression. There is preliminary evidence that the
| protective effect of outdoor activities on the development
| of myopia is due, at least in part, to the effect of long
| hours of exposure to daylight on the production and the
| release of retinal dopamine.
|
| That sounds like a fair bit of support to me.
| delecti wrote:
| > The near work hypothesis, also referred to as the "use-
| abuse theory" states that spending time involved in near
| work strains the intraocular and extraocular muscles.
| Some studies support the hypothesis, while other studies
| do not.[3] While an association is present, it is not
| clearly causal.[3]
|
| This is what I meant. The GP comment included "and
| thereby not focusing their eyes over longer distances",
| which I interpreted to be in contrast to spending time
| indoors and looking at things close to you. So it's not
| that things far from you are protective, but specifically
| variety seems to be. So I think we mostly agree.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Can't find it now, but there is also a comparative
| development study showing myopia and indoor
| electrification setting in together in different
| countries. Though that paper speculated blue light
| content, with a developing eye hard coded to "tune" its
| length on the assumption of sunlight.
| ezfe wrote:
| I played outside all the time when I was younger and here I
| am with my glasses :)
| adverbly wrote:
| I heard somewhere that the speculation was that the cerebral
| cortex is physically next to your eyes, so a big brain stunts
| your eyes... anyone know if there was any truth to that?
| zamiaf wrote:
| The issue with these types of studies though is that there's no
| way to really parse out correlation vs causation, either
| between these two variables or with social factors at large.
| Especially in this case there was no molecular work done to
| validate the hits or establish causal pleiotropic effects. The
| authors are incentivized to tell a story but as readers I think
| we can be a little more skeptical and evaluate the likelihood
| of those kinds of claims (there's positive selection on genes
| that both increase "intelligence" and alter eye shape) versus
| like, environmental and social factors induce a correlation
| between needing glasses and reading...
| yial wrote:
| I agree with this...
|
| I don't think other studies on myopia fit this same
| narrative. (However I may be wrong!)
|
| Example: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65130-w
| d0mine wrote:
| This should be easy to answer: we are not smarter in the recent
| decades (the opposite is likely true due to the leaded petrol).
| The natural selection for smartness is too weak in humans (it
| does not take much brain to reproduce nowadays).
|
| The hypothesis in TFA is much more likely (regular exposure to
| bright daylight in children)
| delecti wrote:
| On the contrary, IQ has been increasing decade-over-decade
| basically since IQ was invented. So we _are_ smarter in
| recent decades.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
|
| (Though because IQ is standardized around a mean of 100, it's
| probably more accurate to say that the IQ of people in the
| past has retroactively gotten lower)
| d0mine wrote:
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/2311082-leaded-
| petrol-m...
| delecti wrote:
| The flynn effect is well documented. The negative effect
| of leaded gas on intelligence just means that average IQ
| "should" have been raising even more throughout the 20th
| century.
| ByteJockey wrote:
| It's considered to have ended (and possibly started
| reversing) in developed countries starting in the mid
| 1990s.
|
| Your link even covers it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly
| nn_effect#Possible_end_of_p...
| JoBrad wrote:
| The last study says "myopic children regardless of their IQ
| gain better school achievement". This makes me think the
| difference is cultural vs genetic.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Does it mean they are more obedient? Not meaning that as a
| put down, but being good in school has a lot to do with
| behavior.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I think it's more likely that people treat people who wear
| glasses like they're smarter, and they feel pressure to
| live up to that.
| dymk wrote:
| Wearing glasses certainly shaped my hobbies - more
| reading and computer time. On top of that, being
| nearsighted (pre glasses) made it hard to catch a ball,
| so less time spent doing sports.
| [deleted]
| bstar77 wrote:
| And here I am thinking my perfect eyesight at 45 is a good
| thing :(
| abledon wrote:
| > For several decades it has been known that myopia
| (nearsightedness) and intelligence are correlated[1][2].
|
| Funny, this was also documented in sanskrit medical texts
| aaron695 wrote:
| [deleted]
| julianbuse wrote:
| When I read the title, I thought they meant not thinking ahead.
| This makes much more sense though!
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Same, though to me the title still made complete sense that
| way.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ekianjo wrote:
| andrepd wrote:
| According to the dictionary this is a valid use of the word
| 'epidemic'.
|
| It's also probably the best word to convey what is happening to
| a general audience.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > According to the dictionary this is a valid use of the word
| 'epidemic'.
|
| That's circular logic because dictionaries keep changing
| their definition to match what ignorant people use.
| drekipus wrote:
| Not even dictionaries are safe from judgement
| andrepd wrote:
| >definition matches what people use
|
| That is indeed how this "language" thing works.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Etymological dictionaries are immune to that problem.
|
| https://www.etymonline.com/word/epidemic -- "epi-demos",
| "among the people".
|
| If you hold close what the term says, and regard the use as
| a derivation, you develop an aware, rooted terminology.
|
| But then, you'd lose the grounds to embrace a conventional
| derivation as what the term means - which is what you just
| condemned.
| danschuller wrote:
| This is a common figurative use of the word. The etymology
| comes from the Greek meaning "upon/on people", so nothing in
| the root connects the meaning to how something develops or
| spreads.
| GameOfFrowns wrote:
| Then why not call it a "pandemic"? Shortsighteness has become
| a global phenomenon with more than one local maximum, hasn't
| it?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| From the article: << _East Asia_ has seen a stunning rise
| in the rate of short-sightedness>>.
| watwut wrote:
| Each pandemic is also epidemic. Pandemics are subset of
| epidemics. The word pandemic existing does not make the use
| of word epidemics incorrect.
|
| Also, pandemic is not normally used in non medical context
| while epidemics is frequently used that way and was for
| years. The journalist probably decided to use the common
| words in their common meaning instead of going for obscure
| usages.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Because it's not a common figurative use of the word
| pandemic.
| timClicks wrote:
| > Journalists are completely illiterate these days.
|
| Was this intentional? You just made the same error.
| wiseowise wrote:
| In their defense, they're not a journalist.
| mercs wrote:
| epidemic: a sudden, widespread occurrence of a particular
| undesirable phenomenon.
|
| You have no idea how language works and provided a weak example
| that didn't make any sense.
| cute_boi wrote:
| epidemic, novel, genocide etc. have become diluted due to
| misuse....
| gambiting wrote:
| >>If people eat more meat then are we supposed to talk about
| "tall people epidemic", because the average height of most
| people increase?
|
| Have you not heard about the "obesity epidemic"?
| [deleted]
| goldenkey wrote:
| Most cases of myopia (nearsightness), involving progressively
| worsening vision, are largely due to inaccurate lens
| prescriptions and bad habits.
|
| An optometrist or optician will have you sit with your head in
| the phoropter asking "better/worse" while flipping lenses -
| pretty much a binary search type of approach. But this is often
| done hastily and results in inaccurate prescriptions.
|
| -----------
|
| Unfortunately, inaccurate scripts are often inflicted upon
| children which as I will describe later, compounds into worsening
| vision over time, with the opticians/optometrists prescribing
| higher and higher power lenses that are only solving an issue
| that is created by the previous history of inaccuracy! Telltale
| signs of inaccurate scripts include:
|
| - minor corrections
|
| Eyes are not static objects and vision actually does vary from
| month to month, day to day, lighting conditions, blood pressure,
| etc. If a correction is minor, it's almost always unecessary and
| harmful.
|
| - slightly different prescriptions for left (OS) and right (OR)
| eyes.
|
| 99.9% of folks have equivalent vision in both eyes. Like I said
| above, if a difference is minor, a correction would almost always
| be harmful.
|
| - minor cylinder corrections (astigmatism.)
|
| Astigmatism is extremely rare and when it does occur it's almost
| never minor. These corrections are especially egregious as they
| cause distortion compensation.
|
| -----------
|
| So why do eye professionals commit these cardinal acts of eye
| destruction upon their patients? Well we already discussed
| hastyness but that is clearly a vice that is going to result in
| bad outcomes in any profession.
|
| What else? Well, eye professionals are taught to seek out as
| perfectly sharp an image as possible, and then back off the power
| a bit to reduce the possibility of eyestrain, headache, and
| dizziness. Some professionals don't even back off the power
| though..
|
| In order to accomplish this task of perfect sharp vision, they
| add all of these minor corrections. When these ill-fitting lenses
| are worn for months on end, the body has a somatic response. The
| eyeballs elongate, which pushes the focal plane back, causing
| further myopia. [1]
|
| The patient goes back to the eye doctor and now receives an even
| more incorrect script based on the transient state their eyes are
| in, induced by a cascading patterned history of harmful scripts.
|
| In the worst case, the eye doctor recommends laser eye surgery
| which shaves the corneal lens of your eye into an artificial
| lens. Essentially, they carve your current harmful prescription
| straight into your eyeball. And then guess what happens? The
| eyeball shortens and often, the patients vision becomes
| progressively worse again. It can take months, but it does
| happen. [2] And now the fix that they recommend? More laser eye
| surgery. It's barbaric.
|
| So please, do not get eye surgery before trying what I recommend
| below. Surgery on the cornea is advertised as non invasive but it
| can cause life long issues such as chronic dry eye. Please try to
| assess whether your vision is actually bad, or just a transient
| state due to a long history of bad prescriptions and poor habits.
|
| ----------
|
| How do you break the cycle and restore your vision?
|
| 1) First, look at your current script. How asymmetric is it? How
| small are the cylinder values, if any?
|
| Lower the scripts power and make the prescription symmetric.
| Remove the minor cylinder values. So for example, if you had -3.6
| and -3.4 with some small astigmatism corrections, just ask for a
| script for -3.4 SPH in both eyes.
|
| 2) Make sure the pupillary distance is correct - eye
| professionals are notorious for fucking this up because the PD
| needs be to custom set for the frame the lenses will be going in,
| otherwise you'll have lenses with a focal center that is not
| aligned with the center of your eyeball. This causes distortion
| and uneven focus, causing eye strain and worsening vision.
|
| 3) Aspheric lenses - buy good lenses like Seiko double aspherics
| - just like cinema or photo lenses cost a lot of money because
| they reduce abberation and edge distortion, your eyes benefit
| from the same technology. Bottom dollar spherical lenses are
| okay, but strain is not healthy for eyes, and a good $300 set of
| Seiko transition lenses with coatings can last 10+ years. It's
| worth your eye health.
|
| 4) Have multiple pairs of spectacles. Use the weakest usable one
| (or no specs) depending on the task you are doing. For instance,
| I'm on my phone in bed, so I am not using any glasses. This will
| improve your vision over time. You can slowly reduce the power of
| your scripts if you care about it. I went from -4.75 to -3.5 and
| I'm happy with what I'm at, so I don't spend any effort trying to
| lower any further. But if you have the money, the time, and the
| will, you can get to -1.X territory through judicious use of a
| set of activity appropriate lenses.
|
| Lastly, buy your own frame, buy your own pupilary distance tools,
| buy your own trial lens kit and trial frame like the Oculus UB6.
| Take time and figure out the right prescription for yourself
| without it being rushed. Test it and have it remade if the center
| of focus of the lenses is not at the center of your eyes. PD is
| integral!
|
| -------------
|
| An eye professional who cares and understands these things CAN
| help and even properly measure these values but they are rare.
| Sometimes if you want something done right, you kind of have to
| do it yourself. Or at the very least, guide or give your demands.
| After all, you are the paying customer.
|
| Hope this helps others break the cycle of worsening vision. If
| anyone has any question, feel free to reach out.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470669/
|
| [2] https://www.webmd.com/eye-health/news/20030410/some-
| patients...
| stakkur wrote:
| > _Sedentary, white-collar jobs are less arduous (and less
| lethal) than manual work. They also promote obesity and heart
| disease._
|
| I'm always baffled by the dismissive wave of the "activity level
| causes obesity and heart disease" trope--because it's mostly
| wrong. The first world _diet_ is the primary cause of obesity and
| heart disease, and it 's well-proven. Starch and sugar, processed
| foods, a diet primarily consisting of carbohydrates. _Diet_ is
| the driver, not activity level.
| [deleted]
| oblak wrote:
| While I am all for the idea that we need to have more sunlight
| indoors, I am not at all convinced that's the cause for the
| condition. TV watching wasn't big when I was a kid, and I didn't
| have the patience for reading, yet I've got it.
|
| So yeah. I am sure prolonged focusing contributes a lot but not
| sure it's the main cause.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| It is always nature and nurture. You have have been more prone
| to being near sighted because of your genetics.
|
| https://www.revieweducationgroup.com/ce/how-environment-and-...
| scotty79 wrote:
| Could we just have rooms lit as strongly as outdoors?
| hackererror404 wrote:
| There's an amazing youtuber/creator I've been following for a
| while and he does exactly this. Goes into the science of what
| it takes, and the results are really stunning. I'd love to give
| something like this a try, just need time.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bqBsHSwPgw
|
| Also there was a breakthrough a while ago with LED ceiling
| lights that mimic natural sun. I haven't heard much since their
| release, so I'm sure cost is still a major issue for these
| sadly.
|
| https://www.zmescience.com/science/physics/artificial-light-...
| Hendrikto wrote:
| The length people go to in order not to leave the house...
| marvin wrote:
| These techniques would be very useful in the three darkest
| months in Scandinavia, where the sun is down both when you
| leave and return from work, and generally behind clouds
| otherwise.
|
| Me, I'll climb the floors of the office and stand in a
| windowed stairwell with the sun in my eyes for ten minutes
| after lunch every day, when the weather's good, but that's
| being kind of anal about it.
| idlehand wrote:
| Where I live we have sun 18-22 hours a day in summer and
| maybe 4 hours in the winter - the sun doesn't even go
| halfway up before going down again on those days.
|
| Unfortunately me and my partner both have our families here
| so moving is not an option. Being able to see decently
| strong light in December without having to travel would be
| worth a lot to me.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| You can't blame him -- he seems to be from UK, they see the
| sun there maybe 4 times a year.
| memsom wrote:
| That is really not true.
| JoBrad wrote:
| True. It's at least 5 times a year.
| Fordec wrote:
| Short answer, yes.
|
| Long answer, you'll need to really jack up the power
| consumption. Replicating a thing that in itself an energy
| source needs waaaay more than just a 60W light bulb.
| coffeeblack wrote:
| 60W would be some 10 LED lights that each are 100W
| equivalents to old glow lights. That would probably already
| do the trick in a small room.
|
| Do people really still use old "light bulbs"?
| PeterisP wrote:
| > 60W would be some 10 LED lights that each are 100W
| equivalents to old glow lights. That would probably already
| do the trick in a small room.
|
| Not really, daylight is not 10 times but much more brighter
| than a 100w incandescent lamp, such illumination (e.g. it
| has certain uses to help seasonal depression) exists but
| it's _very_ bright compared to normal indoors lighting.
|
| The old 100w lamps were ~1600 lumens; outdoors daylight is
| something like 10k lumens/square meter in shade (direct
| sunlight would be another order of magnitude more), and an
| appropriate number for the surfaces of a small room would
| be in the ballpark of 100 of such LEDs so 600w of
| electricity.
| coffeeblack wrote:
| Interesting! Thanks for the correction.
| citruscomputing wrote:
| Yes! I'm experimenting with this right now with a very bright,
| color temp adjustable, high-CRI photography lamp, and the
| difference is, well, night and day. There are several good
| posts out there on the subject.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| There's an increasing body of good evidence that bright indoor
| conditions also lift mood and improve productivity, often quite
| noticeably.
|
| Since the pandemic and work-from-home, I've been working in a
| home office where an entire wall is a glass door leading to the
| balcony, floor to ceiling. I let the light stream in, and it's
| basically daylight inside. I had to get a brighter monitor (600
| nit OLED), but now I just can't picture myself going back to
| work in a gloomy cubicle farm. The grey, dim light would just
| depress me.
|
| There's a few hobbyists using large LED or OLED panels to
| achieve the same kind of lighting effect as overhead sunlight.
| Because of the higher efficiency, it's now possible to do this
| without an extravagant power bill or excessive heat. This makes
| the most sense is in places closer to the arctic, where winters
| are long, dark, and _cold_. So in effect, the "wasted" heat
| energy of the lighting simply contributes to heating the
| workplace or home.
|
| Here on YC News more than a few people have suggested that this
| might be a nice startup to work on: "indoor sunlight" products
| and installation services can start small, but can scale up!
| You can also imagine combo products, such as solar-power +
| batteries + bright lighting panels.
| wrycoder wrote:
| I spent 80% of my career in gloomy interior spaces with low
| intensity fluorescent lighting that beat with the cathode ray
| tube monitors' scanning.
|
| I was much happier when I could snag a space with a window
| once in awhile.
| inopinatus wrote:
| Sometimes, the glass ceiling isn't a metaphor.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| It would be really fun if the whole reasons why I don't wear
| glasses is because I keep strong light in my room since I was a
| kid (I like strong light)
| formerly_proven wrote:
| For the visible portion, that's around 25-50 W/m2, so around
| double that for current LEDs. The question becomes: at what
| illumination do we start to get a significant effect?
| seydor wrote:
| what about go outside?
| alliao wrote:
| I looked and even on cloudy days it's orders of magnitude
| brighter than my brightest light.. so I just went outside
| zeroth32 wrote:
| [deleted]
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| ... No... this has been happening for decades.
|
| In East Asia, the vast majority of people are now nearsighted,
| which has been a fun fact long before anyone even heard of
| COVID.
| OrwellianTimes wrote:
| Agree man! Lockdown was just really unjustified on society.
|
| It made no sense for such a minor disease which I'm sure would
| have been dismissed as flu 60 years ago.
|
| I don't know what caused this overreaction, sure for 30-40 days
| but this thing has devastated billions of lives, left millions
| jobless and ruined an entire generation.
|
| It's sometimes necessary to have pandemics and diseases like
| this to control the population of society.
|
| Europe practically had a renaissance after the black death.
| lifeplusplus wrote:
| 2 million isn't few lives
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