Do you ever find yourself checking Twitter or watching a YouTube video and realize that you're doing it more out of boredom? More out of force of habit than actual enjoyment? Do you ever look up from your phone after checking Twitter or watching that YouTube video and notice your eyes strain like someone is pulling back on them? Well, the latter could very well be because you’re looking at your phone too much. Sound kind of obvious? It probably is. *Informate, a mobile research group, found in 2015 that Americans spend an average of 4.7 hours on their smartphones per day. **Last year a poll from Deloitte found that the average American checked their phone about 46 times per day. The figure fluctuates depending on your age range, with the 18-24 year olds (Hey! That’s me!) leading the charge with an average of 74 times per day. The reason I bring all of these fancy statistics from mobile research groups and other such entities is that this overuse of cellphones is probably hurting us in two ways. Optometrists told BBC*** in 2014 and Digital Trends**** in 2015 about Blue Light (the kind of violet light emitted from phones, tablets, LED TV’s, etc) and the potential long-term damage it can cause to your eyes. Doctor Gary Heiting, OD in his interview with Digital trends stated that “HEV (Blue violet light) is that portion of the visible spectrum that comprises light with the shortest wavelengths, which carry the greatest potential to damage living tissue.” Later on to he talks about the damage they have seen it do in lab and animal studies and its consistency with macular degeneration. And the other reason that it's hurting us? Because with that constant flood of information at our fingertips, we spend a lot of time scrolling. Scrolling through feeds, emails, and articles without giving them their due diligence. We’re seeing so much and there is so much TO BE seen that we aren’t as analytical or sedulous as we should be. How many times a day do we see a headline and make an immediate rash judgement on an article that we will never read? We should be more conscientious with what we spend our time looking at.
Now this isn’t me saying that cell phones are bad, that you’re bad for using them and that you should hurl yours into a ravine. Heck, I may very well be looking at my phone as we speak (you read?). I just think sometimes we need to remind ourselves how important diligence is. To make sure that we’re spending our time paying attention to things that truly engage us, whether it be educationally or for entertainment. It can be easy to look at things we don’t even really care about, but that superfluous time we spend on our phones and tablets in between life may very well be permanently damaging our eyes. If we continue unabated, we risk seeing things less clearly. In every sense of the phrase.
*Informate Mobile Intelligence First to Measure Smartphone Usage Internationally, Report Currently Tracks 12 Countries and Will Expand to 25 by the End of 2015. Dan Bradley. February 2015. http://www.informatemi.com/newsletter10022015.html
**Deloitte 2015 Global Mobile Consumer Survey: US Edition. 2015. http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/us-tmt-global-mobile-executive-summary-2015.pdf
***Smartphone overuse may “damage” eyes, say opticians. March 28, 2014. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/26780069/sma...
****Does staring at screens all day really damage? We asked an expert. Simon Hill. February 7, 2015. http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/does-your-phon...
