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Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

economist.com

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Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#161

Post by throwawayarnty »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #66
Aeolun wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 plan…

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.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#163

Post by spidersouris »

ayewo wrote: post #117
spidersouris wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go: https://arxius.io/f/e9c469eb

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?

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.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#164

Post by wiseowise »

charles_kaw wrote: post #144
wiseowise wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent all my childhood outside and still near-sighted.

One person's anecdote does not qualify or disqualify a concept.

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.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#165

Post by doliveira »

silisili wrote: post #75
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

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.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#167

Post by saiya-jin »

ejb999 wrote: post #156
nilsbunger wrote: post #2

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!

>>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.

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.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#168

Post by Angostura »

mikewarot wrote: post #126

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, a…

Would that pet peeve be regarding British publications using British English? https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/short-sightedness/

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#169

Post by engineer_22 »

excalibur wrote: post #155
frereubu wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Making kids go to the beach in the rain isn't a great strategy either.

Rain is a good thing

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#170

Post by smeej »

OskarS wrote: post #10
nilsbunger wrote: post #2

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!

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 c…

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.

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