Myopia is rising in children but experts say focus should be on spending time outdoors rather than reducing screen time
even if their parents are shortsighted, and regardless of how much time they spend on “near work” – activities done at short focal distance, like reading and writing.. Exposure to daylight is also thought to stimulate receptors in the eye to produce dopamine that protects against the development of shortsightedness., focusing on books or screens, are at greater risk of becoming shortsighted. Other risk factors include increasing level of education and having two parents who are myopic.
“The prevalence of myopia was high in Taiwan and Singapore by the 1970s, when computer use was very limited, and smartphones were nonexistent,” Morgan said. “You don’t need these devices to create an epidemic. Since smartphones only took off about 10 to 15 years ago, we need to get more evidence that they are having an effect.”Research overseas has linked a decrease in outdoor time during the Covid-19 pandemic to a rise in shortsightedness in children.
The researchers found the changes coincided with a reduction in outdoor time from about one hour and 16 minutes a day to 24 minutes a day, and an increase in screen time from two and a half hours to seven hours daily.in Turkish children who had already been diagnosed with shortsightedness found their myopia worsened more in 2020 compared with the two previous years.
For children already diagnosed as shortsighted, treatment options to slow the progression of myopia include specific eyedrops, contact lenses and myopia control glasses, Ly said.Optometry Australia found that 42% of surveyed Australians reported an increase in time spent looking at screens over the previous 12 months.
“There’s a little bit of evidence that occupations that require really intensive amounts of near work may tend to be more myopic,” Morgan said. “On the whole, the effects on adults seem to be pretty minimal.
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