Comments on: Does reading a book, watching a video, or playing a game in the car worsen eyesight?

By: Darkphoenix1

Darkphoenix1 — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:47:59 +0000

It does if you stay too long attending electronic devices.
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By: reg

reg — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:30:59 +0000

You eye is technically like a lens, the ones we studied in physics back in high school.
Its focal point, makes it set to see by default the infinitely far, technically what is farthest that the focal point (which I believe is in the range of 20 cm if I am not mistaken).
Hence every thing that we see that is closer that the focal point, would require our eye muscles to contract and hence tire. When we see the horizon, our eyes’ muscles are relaxed the most.
From these infos I can deduce that watching a video would be the best for eyesight.
This does not mean that when our eye muscles contract we are damaging our eyes, not at all. But keeping them contracted for a long time, will damage them (hours of reading for example). We should let our eyes rest a little bit looking out the window for instance each hour or so.
Another thing, watching a video on a screen that is too big will tire your eyes too.

Car sickness is another story: when in the car, if you read, your eyes are sending pictures to your brain, still pictures of the book for example, while at the same time, your ears are sending message to your brain saying that you are in motion since your body is not still. You’re brain gets confused which results in the response of car sickness.
If you do not wanna get car sick try the following:
-take specific pills for that,
-keep looking out the window
-plug you ear, with in-ear earphones or the soundproof thingies they give you in planes for instance.

I get car sick really quickly, and dont recommend using your eyes in the car. Try listening to music and sleeping (not falling all the way, but you know closing your eyes and relaxing).

Good luck!
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By: Amber

Amber — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:46:59 +0000

Straining your eyes and causing permanent vision damage are two completely different and unrelated things.

You can strain your eyes from trying to focus on the same thing for too long. Strain will cause an inability to focus, temporary blurred vision, and can lead to headaches.

Contrary to popular belief, watching too much TV or reading a book in dim light will not cause permanent vision damage. Eye strain yes, vision damage no.

Your vision can be damaged in many ways. Most people’s vision problems are genetic. If your parents carry genes for near sightedness or far sightedness, then there’s a good chance you will have the same issues as they do. Age can also cause vision to deteriorate as the lens in your eye begins to lose its ability to self focus and becomes less flexible, this is why people often need glasses later in life. The only other way to corrupt your vision (save for a severing of the optic nerve) is to introduce something foreign into your eye. You can scratch the cornea and deep penetrations can cause damage to the retina that your body may be unable to repair. Also, bacterial infections can lead to the same sorts of permanent damage.

The nausea you’re experiencing in the car is because your body (inner ear) senses that you’re moving, but because you’re watching something steady (a book or TV screen) there is no way for your body to orient itself to what is going on around them. It’s a good idea to take a break and look around once in a while so your body can reorient, and that will likely help the nausea.
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