Technology is something that has improved during the years and so has the brightness of devices like TVs, phones, and computers increases. Technology is something that our generation uses and the ones after ours will continue to use on a daily basis. The downside to this is that the brightness of our technology, especially in the dark, is something that causes problems, especially in your eyes.
The main reason your technology can damage your eyes in the dark can be because your phone emits blue light which can bring both mental and physical health problems. Blue light is something that can damage many parts of your eyes; the blue light passes from the cornea to the lenses and then it gets to the retina. This is something that can cause eye diseases such as Dry Eyes; this is a disease that causes a sandy feeling, a burning sensation, blurry eyesight, and redness in the eye. Besides that, Dry Eyes can also be caused when using technology up close; this is especially the case when used in the darkness since you are forcing your eyesight even more. The reason why this happens would be that your blink rate starts going slower than usual which will cause your eyes to dry faster. Blue light affects you mentally since the wavelength of the blue light can affect the levels of melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland which has melanin formation and is thought to be concerned with adjusting the reproductive cycle. When people use their technology at night, the blue light is not allowing the melatonin's release which causes people to fall asleep slower. Even if you sleep the same amount of time, you will feel more tired. Besides that, the REM cycle,which is the stage of sleep in which your eyes move rapidly in different directions and dreams occur, will be affected and you will be less likely to get dreams.
Using technology in the dark causes eye strain; this occurs due to the fact that you are forcing your eyes to focus on the bright screen. Since your eyes are being forced, the pupils get smaller and the muscles in your eyes try being the size of the lens which causes very painful headaches. Besides that, you can also get headaches due to the fact that the people who make the devices put black texts in bright backgrounds. That's why when you buy reading devices, like the kindle, they put a grey background instead of a bright white one.
The problem that happened to this person can’t be proved to be a phone's fault, but it is very possible that it was. There was another case that happened to two other girls that went temporarily blind because of checking their phone constantly in the dark. The doctors said that these girls had experienced transit blindness. The problem wasn’t solved until later on when they found out that the two women were looking at their phone with one eye in the pillow and the other looking at the phone. This is worse than only looking at your phone in the dark because one eye is getting used to the dark and the other one to the light. The girls’ problem could have been caused by something else but the eye doctors believe that this is the most reasonable explanation.
Using technology in the dark can be dangerous, as it was seen with the previous cases, the use of technology in the dark could cause blindness and other eye diseases. Besides affecting your eye, phones also affect the way you sleep since that disturbs the rest of your day. You can easily prevent these things from happening by having a night light on and taking care of yourself by sleeping early. You can also try to decrease your use of technology on your daily basis. Even though using technology in the dark is what causes more damage, being stuck to a screen can also damage your eyesight; it may affect you less, but it still affects you. If you are a person that is a reader, maybe try finding an app that has a grey background or invest in a technological device that does not affect your eyes much. If you really care about your well-being, then you should be cautious about how much and when you are using your devices.
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