Speaking with The Atlantic, Dr. Marina Su, a New York City optometrist, noticed that more children in her practice had declining vision, even though their parents’ vision was perfect. “If it’s only genetics, then why are these kids also getting myopic?” she said. Myopia is on the rise worldwide — not just in New York City — and there’s debate over what’s driving the change.
A frontrunner is the theory that technology — particularly staring at screens all day — is the culprit, leading to problems with vision at younger and younger ages, which could lead to “an epidemic of blindness that’s decades down the road,” according to Dr. Michael Repka, an ophthalmology professor at Johns Hopkins University.
It’s a concerning trend that goes far beyond the inconvenient need to wear glasses. The fact is, the way technology has infiltrated our lives, in many cases from morning until well into the night, has changed the way humans use their eyes dramatically in just a short blip of time. “Long ago, humans were hunters and gatherers,” Liandra Jung, an optometrist in the Bay Area, told The Atlantic. “We relied on our sharp distance vision to track prey and find ripe fruit. Now our modern lives are close-up and indoors. ‘To get food, we forage by getting Uber Eats,’” she said.”...<<<Read More>>>...
