17% more Americans have myopia than 30 years ago -- computer work blamed

[steven johnson]

My mother told me that reading in dim light would weaken my eyes. I guess it was those computer games and word processing.

For an increasing number of Americans, life's a blur.

That's according to a population-based study published Monday showing that rates of myopia -- difficulty seeing distant objects -- are soaring. The trend is matched in many other countries, causing eye doctors to wonder what could be causing the decline in human vision.

Some suspect both an increase in our close-up work time (think computer use) and a decrease in time spent outdoors.

Researchers at the National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, found that rates of myopia -- also called nearsightedness -- in people ages 12 to 54 increased from 25% in 1971-72 to 41.6% in 1999-2004. The study included people with a range of myopia, from mild to severe.


Distance vision is all a blur to more of us

[HeresyLives]

1. It has to do with reading, not computers.

We are no longer looking across the veldt, and our eyes haven't adjusted to that yet.

[customerserviceguy]

2. That doesn't explain the changes noted above

which are from a relatively short period of time.

There could be environmental factors other than simply what humans use their eyes for.

[HeresyLives]

5. Humans have to adapt from the veldt.

There are no other factors involved.

[customerserviceguy]

6. Yes, I realize that two million years of evolution

will not adapt quickly to a mere 5,000 years of human history. But we (as a species) were already well into reading by 1971-72. Whatever lack of adaptation we had was not significantly remedied by evolution in a mere thirty years, when this study shows that the myopia rate in younger people has risen by 25%.

As you know, humans have not been eating the way they did on the veldt for quite some number of years, agriculture changed all that. But it's fair to note that very recent changes in diet from foods that could not have been produced in nature have accellerated the rates of diabetes, and possibly other disorders. That's the kind of environmental factors I'm talking about. We also have exposures to chemical levels that would not have been encountered either in pre-industrial society, and certainly not in prehistoric life.

I merely speculate that some yet unknown factor might be responsible for the change in nearsightedness that we can measure within a human lifetime, you're talking about changes that are completely unmeasurable.

[Cant trust em]

3. I wouldn't be surprised by that at all.

I've noticed a little bit of change for me. My desk is shallow so that my computer is pretty close to my face.

[demosincebirth]

4. republicans are more myopic