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Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

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Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#221

Post by stevebmark »

M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote: post #190
stevebmark wrote: post #50

Part of how myopia works: When your peripheral vision is in focus too much, because something is close to your face like a screen, your eye (which grows on its own, without brain involvement), is told to grow longer to to help reduce the over sharpening of the world it thinks it has. This happens in developing humans, at some point in adulthood it's suspected this stops (although some people see worsening myopia past…

would it help to keep your phone or monitor further away?

Having less focus in your peripheral vision might help slow myopia progression, so possibly. However wearing glasses and contacts automatically add more focus to peripheral vision, signaling the eye to grow. So moving something further away from your face while wearing glasses or contacts may have less of an effect. Having periods of blurry vision, like looking at something far away for some time without glasses or contacts, may be beneficial in that it may signal the eye to become less football shaped to help correct for the blurriness it now is experiencing. However I haven't seen any evidence this can reverse or improve myopia, rather this just seems to slow its progression.

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#222

Post by sekai »

gowld wrote: post #75
scottLobster wrote: post #6

So a few minutes ago I wrote code for a company, producing economic value. Last night I kept up with family, maintaining healthy personal relationships. Right now I'm engaging in intellectual discussion of major issues with other people. And last night I watched an episode of Mr. Robot, engaging my brain with a stimulating story. And yes, sometimes I just look at animal gifs on imgur. I see no problem continuing any…

How much of that time was caring for your eye health so you don't go blind early?

With that logic, 10% WOW players from 2009 would be half-blind, but they're not

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#223

Post by saalweachter »

ipnon wrote: post #207
saalweachter wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure there is a correlation, maybe even a strong one, but I have quite a bit of anecdata to suggest it is not true in all cases. (I grew up on a farm, and spent a helluva lot of time outside, and needed glasses long before my family had a computer; my father would have spent even more time outside than I did, and likewise is pretty nearsighted.)

The link references the rate of myopia in South Korea increasing from 18% in 1955 to 96% in 2011. This suggests 2 things: 1. Myopia is not entirely genetic, because genes for myopia could not have spread to almost all Koreans from almost no Koreans in the span of 56 years. 2. Myopia is somewhat genetic, because myopia existed in a significant proportion of the pre-industrial population.

Prefixing this with an acknowledgement that I totally believe there was a change in the prevalence of myopia due to changes in environmental conditions (amount of sunlight, artificial lighting, etc etc)...

I am curious whether 18% was the diagnosed rate of myopia in South Korea in 1955 or the actual rate of myopia in 1955.

In 1955 South Korea was a poor country; now it is one of the wealthier countries (per capita) in the world. On the one hand, it is entirely believable to me that access to eye correction is radically greater than ~70 years ago, and there was a lot of undiagnosed vision problems in 1955. On the other hand, it's also entirely believable to me that literally every 20 year old (male) was given a vision test in 1955 in South Korea, because of the War. On the third hand, it's also entirely believable to me that the vision test given was fairly easy to "pass", and that a many of the people who passed it would have a level of myopia that we would now prescribe glasses for, because hey, better vision is better.

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#224

Post by mattkrause »

bdamm wrote: post #210
mattkrause wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as your visual system is concerned, "real" violet (e.g., from a tunable laser) and the "fake" RGB violet are pretty much the same--it's coded as the relative amounts of red/green or blue/yellow almost immediately after the cones.

Not necessarily. There is a lot of analog in the eyes beyond the nerves, and we don't know all the effects of ambient light on the entire eye structure. Even if the neural impulses end up being similar (and I doubt that) the eye as a whole organ may not respond the same way. Maybe that heat energy triggers something in the cornea? We don't know.

I don't disagree that UV and IR exposure may be important. Variations in UV exposure are thought to account for changing rates of myopia, for example. There may be non-image-forming receptors with different spectral sensitivities for circadian rhythms.

However, the structure and function of circuits involved in color representations has been studied to death, and it overwhelmingly points to a tristimulus model where the activation of the S/M/L cones matters, rather than the complete power spectrum of the illuminant. The sensitivity of rods and cones has measured measured with exquisite sensitivity, both behaviorally and by directly recording their electrical activity. Many downstream neurons in visual cortex get their input from individual L/M cones (parvocellular pathway). The others (magno, konio) have a fairly simple mix of inputs from a simple, spatially organized combination of the cones. In some cases (especially within the retina), the individual fibers have been traced and mapped.

There is a hell of a lot we don't know about the brain, but the very early representation of color isn't one of them. If you've got sources saying otherwise, I'd love to see them.

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#225

Post by saalweachter »

chansiky wrote: post #220
saalweachter wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure there is a correlation, maybe even a strong one, but I have quite a bit of anecdata to suggest it is not true in all cases. (I grew up on a farm, and spent a helluva lot of time outside, and needed glasses long before my family had a computer; my father would have spent even more time outside than I did, and likewise is pretty nearsighted.)

What did you spend your time doing though? Did you read a lot? Did you draw? Did you spend a lot of time working on things within arms reach? Or did you spend your time staring off into the far yonder? Isn't there a case to be made that sunlight is more of a signal used to help the eyes learn to focus and that by staring at something a foot away with low signal strength the eyes never got the feedback necessary to sh…

Climbing trees, chasing livestock, running through fields, catching frogs, rolling down hills, digging holes... ?

I was outside. If what a small child running around on a farm for hours and hours every day, rain or shine, doesn't count as "being outside more", we need to start using a different word to refer to that.

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#226

Post by tasuki »

jedberg wrote: post #116
jrochkind1 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You started out I was expecting you to be very liberal with 'screen time', especially agreeing with the GP who seemed the same. But: > The rule in our house is that you can't use a screen if the sun is up unless it's a weekend I think that's actually limiting screentime more than most US households, you aren't actually on the "no need to limit screentime" side at all!

It's important to note that we are night owls. The kids have TV basically from 7pm (when I turn on Jeopardy regardless of sunset) until they go to bed around 11pm. And during the current situation, sometimes they go to bed around 1-3am. So they actually get a lot more screen time than most of their peers.

Five and three year old go to bed around 1-3am? I don't necessarily have an opinion on that, but it surprises me :)

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#227

Post by woobar »

aupchurch wrote: post #119

These stats always freak me out when you extrapolate it over the long term. The average adult will also spend 2 years commuting or an entire year of their life sitting on the toilet. Lot's of wasted time here people. I think this also shows the power of what we can accomplish by spending 10 minutes a day doing something.

If they sit on the toilet while staring at the screen, what bucket these years are assigned to? I.e. these extrapolations could result in multiples of your lifespan.

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#228

Post by Footkerchief »

nixpulvis wrote: post #93
martindbp wrote: post #2

Well, personally I don't sit staring at a screen, I watch movies, play games, talk to people, build stuff and learn new things. You wouldn't say reading a book is "staring at paper" would you?

You can make it out to be whatever you want. But there is a physical difference between a screen's light emissions and the light perceived from paper. I've always been curious exactly how much different, but anyone claiming otherwise is suspect in my eyes.

Your intuition is correct. Even if they have the same apparent color, two light sources can have drastically different spectra, which is perceptible. Some info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#229

Post by jedberg »

tasuki wrote: post #226
jedberg wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to note that we are night owls. The kids have TV basically from 7pm (when I turn on Jeopardy regardless of sunset) until they go to bed around 11pm. And during the current situation, sometimes they go to bed around 1-3am. So they actually get a lot more screen time than most of their peers.

Five and three year old go to bed around 1-3am? I don't necessarily have an opinion on that, but it surprises me :)

They also wake up around 11am-1pm, so they still get 10 hours of sleep. :)

Turns out not every kid loves mornings!

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#230

Post by javitury »

ipnon wrote: post #207
saalweachter wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure there is a correlation, maybe even a strong one, but I have quite a bit of anecdata to suggest it is not true in all cases. (I grew up on a farm, and spent a helluva lot of time outside, and needed glasses long before my family had a computer; my father would have spent even more time outside than I did, and likewise is pretty nearsighted.)

The link references the rate of myopia in South Korea increasing from 18% in 1955 to 96% in 2011. This suggests 2 things: 1. Myopia is not entirely genetic, because genes for myopia could not have spread to almost all Koreans from almost no Koreans in the span of 56 years. 2. Myopia is somewhat genetic, because myopia existed in a significant proportion of the pre-industrial population.

> Myopia is somewhat genetic

That conclusion is can't be supported from the above fact alone.

It could be a development disorder with a certain probability of occurrence given other non-genetic factors.

Perhaps some pre-industrial people didn't get enough sun time, because they spent too time at home reading. Others had physical eye damage from work activities, etc.

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