Your smartphone could cause temporary blindness. This scare sounds a bit far fetch but, according to two reports, viewing a phone at night under certain circumstances can cause what is being called “transient smartphone blindness”.
However, there is a simple solution.
The victims were two women who had been repeatedly checking their phones in the dark, while in bed. The incidents were reported in the highly respected New England Journal of Medicine.
The women had told doctors at a London eye hospital that they’d suffered episodes of vision loss lasting up to fifteen minutes – and examinations failed to uncover the cause.
When eye doctor Gordon Plant asked them exactly what had happened, they both admitted they had been checking their phones using just one eye. They had been lying on their sides and the other eye was covered by their pillows.
That meant one eye was adapted to the light while the other was in darkness mode. When the women stopped using their phone, they found they couldn’t see using their phone eyes.
Is it Permanent?
There isn’t any evidence that proves checking a phone this way causes any permanent damage. The doctor explained, people who feel compelled to check their phones in the dark should simply use both eyes.
Research also suggests that not everyone who does the two women did would suffer the same outcome.
Even so, it is a well-known fact that viewing a mobile device screen at nighttime, especially surrounded by darkness, can be bad for you, by disrupting your sleep patterns. Blue light from the screen cuts the amount of the sleep hormone melatonin in the user’s bloodstream.
Experts recommend you switch off or at least stop using all your electronic devices an hour before turning in for the night.
Some reported ailments from checking devices while upright is said to include “text neck” and “cell phone elbow”, the first caused by the angle people hold their heads at while checking their phones and the second caused by holding the phone to your ear for extended periods.
The solution in these cases is to try to reduce the number of times you check your phone, but that, as we know, is often easier said than done.
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