Name: Tech Added to an Epidemic of Myopia. Can It Help Fix It Too?
Uploaded: 2023-08-31T18:03:00Z
Duration: 5 min 32 s
Description: Screens and a lack of sunlight are harming children’s vision. Half the global population is expected to be nearsighted by 2050, according to the World Health Organization. WSJ family and tech columnist Julie Jargon joins host Zoe Thomas to explain how the situation got so bad and one tech fix that could help. Illustration: Jon Krause

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Screens and a lack of sunlight are harming children’s vision. Half the global population is expected to be nearsighted by 2050, according to the World Health Organization. WSJ family and tech columnist Julie Jargon joins host Zoe Thomas to explain how the situation got so bad and one tech fix that could help. Illustration: Jon Krause

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Tech Added to an Epidemic of Myopia. Can It Help Fix It Too?

Zoe: Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Thursday, August 31st. I'm Zoe Thomas for "The Wall Street Journal." There is a global epidemic of myopia, or nearsightedness, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, especially among kids. Nearsightedness develops in childhood typically between ages 5 and 16 and it's closely linked to a lack of exposure to sunlight. So if kids spend a lot of time inside looking at screens... See where I'm going here? With me now to talk about this issue and what parents can do to try to prevent it is "The Wall Street Journal's" family and tech columnist, Julie Jargon. Julie, I don't wanna just throw words like epidemic around lightly. How bad is this situation?

Julie: Well, right now about 30% of the world population has myopia and it's expected to increase to half the population by 2050, according to the World Health Organization.

Zoe: For young people where this is typically developing, what is the cause of all of this?

Julie: So there have been a few big studies that have shown a really strong link between the amount of time children spend outside in natural light and the development of myopia. And the reason is there's something in sunlight that helps control the growth of your eyeball. And when kids are not exposed to enough outdoor light, their eyeballs tend to grow much larger. You can't see it from looking at a person, but they become elongated. And that has an impact on how well the eye can focus on things in the distance. So things in the distance appear blurry.

Zoe: How much time are kids spending outside according to these studies?

Julie: It's hard to get a really good handle on that. There was a study in 2015 from the University of Michigan that looked at the amount of time kids spent outside in unstructured playtime. That doesn't account for things like recess at school or time outside at a childcare center or kids playing outdoor sports. But just the amount of time the kids spend in free play outside at that time was just seven minutes a day. So surely that amount of time has shrunk in recent years. You hear a lot about how kids just don't play on their own the way they used to. They're in structured activities, which oftentimes they're indoors. And when they do have downtime, as a lot of parents have observed and others have told me, they choose to be on their screens as a way to decompress and relax from all the structured activities they're doing all day long.

Zoe: I mean, it almost seems crazy to ask this given the cause, but is there technology that can help in this situation?

Julie: Well, you know, it's funny to think about technology as helping correct some of the things that it created, but Apple has been aware of the research showing the link between time spent outside and the development of myopia. And what they're trying to do now with the release of the latest software update for their watches is to allow watch wearers to track how much time they spend in daylight. Certain models of the watch have an ambient light sensor, and so what that can do is detect how much time is spent outside, and that will show up in the health app on your iPhone. So parents can keep an eye on that or the kids themselves can keep an eye on how much time they are actually spending outside. You don't have to have a watch to do that for you. You can track that on your own with good old pencil and paper, but it might be a useful feature for some families who lose track of the day. And another thing that's related to myopia is holding things too closely to your face. Whether it's a book or a screen, holding things farther away and focusing on objects in the distance can help reduce the progression of myopia. So another sort of tech fix to that is Apple is introducing a new feature coming out next month in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 that will prompt people to hold their iPhones or iPads farther away from their faces if they're holding it too close for an extended period of time.

Zoe: Is this the same advice if you are an adult and you're experiencing some kind of nearsightedness or myopia?

Julie: Well, I mean, unfortunately by the time you're an adult your eyes have probably stopped growing. And if you already have developed myopia, you have it. But definitely our eyes tire out. Our eyes can get dry. So these are definitely things that, you know, might make you feel better, but it's pretty much in early childhood where you can make the most impact by making some changes to your habits.

Zoe: And I guess it's important to note, looking at screens is not the only cause of myopia, correct?

Julie: There's a genetic basis for this, so it does tend to run in families, but I have talked to some ophthalmologists who say that even in families where myopia has been the case, if kids are exposed to enough sunlight and not holding things too close to their faces, they don't necessarily have to develop myopia just because their parents had it.

Zoe: That was our family and tech columnist Julie Jargon. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang and me with deputy editor Chris Zinsli. I'm Zoe Thomas for "The Wall Street Journal." We'll be back tomorrow. Thanks for listening.

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Tech Added to an Epidemic of Myopia. Can It Help Fix It Too?

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