By Veronica Beltran

eye health

TYH: Caring for your eyes in a world surrounded by screens

Nov 12, 2019 | 8:30 AM

Our eyes quite literally serve as the windows to our bodies; allowing us to see colour, shape and light, however, those windows are compromised every single day as screens surround us left right and centre.

So how do we care for them and live in an era abundant with screens? We spoke with a local optometrist who gave us some tips and recommendations on how much screen time we should be getting and who’s most at risk of damaging their eyes.

According to market research poll, OnePoll, a study done amoungst 2,000 adult Americans found that they spend an average of 6 hours and 43 minutes a day staring at screens. “Screens can definitely impact the eyes significantly. Something we often talk to patients about is something known as digital eye strain or digital vision syndrome and screen use can cause a lot of issues. So blurry vision, double vision…headaches, dry eyes, watery eyes, even excessive blinking can be associated with too much screen use,” said Vincent Budac, Optometrist at Envision Eye Health Clinic in Prince George.

Budac says that children are the most at risk when it comes to compromising their eye health with screens. According to the Canadian Association of Optometrists children ages 0-2 are recommended to have no screen time with the exception of video chatting, children ages 2-5 no more than an hour a day and children 5-18 no more than two hours of recreational screen time a day.

Courtesy of the Canadian Association of Optometrists.

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Budac recommends that those who work looking at screens all day take breaks every 20 minutes, for 20 seconds and look at something more than 20 ft. away.

Blocking the amount of blue light (the light that screens produce) that enters our eyes is also helpful, doing things like turning your phone to night mode, which reduces the amount of blue light entering your eyes, or even getting blue blocking anti-reflective coatings on glasses can help reduce eye strain.