[HN Gopher] Average adult will spend 34 years of their life star...
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Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens
Author : praveenscience
Score : 292 points
Date : 2020-05-20 15:26 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.studyfinds.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.studyfinds.org)
| nbj914 wrote:
| seems low
| martindbp wrote:
| Well, personally I don't sit staring at a screen, I watch movies,
| play games, talk to people, build stuff and learn new things. You
| wouldn't say reading a book is "staring at paper" would you?
| jccc wrote:
| This is an excellent point (sincerely), but in addition there
| is quite a bit of difference in what is required of a reader
| "staring at paper" vs. many of the couch potatoes staring at
| their various screens.
|
| Probably HN is packed with better than average active users of
| screens than the general population.
| throwaway_USD wrote:
| >You wouldn't say reading a book is "staring at paper" would
| you?
|
| Actually there is a colloquialism for that since the early
| 1900's: "Nose in a book"
|
| To your point no one actually has their nose in the book.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _You wouldn 't say reading a book is "staring at paper" would
| you?_
|
| Well, ultimately, it is...
| martindbp wrote:
| Of course, but nobody ever says this. Except when reading was
| a new thing.
| coldtea wrote:
| Mostly because nobody (statistically) spends too much time
| reading books. And because books have (on average) more
| substantial content than social websites and other such
| uses of time, so that's a better tradeoff.
|
| That said, some people can (and do, more so in the past)
| over-read, to the detriment of their social life or even to
| their health...
| filoleg wrote:
| Fully in agreement with your take on this. One small
| clarification, however.
|
| >You wouldn't say reading a book is "staring at paper" would
| you?
|
| In our day and age, you wouldn't. But this was definitely a
| thing in 1800s (regarding books) and in early 1900s (regarding
| newspapers). Using very similar excuses to rant about those, as
| the excuses being used today regarding screens too.
|
| And even earlier, in Ancient Greece, tons of prolific
| philosophers were strongly opposed to writing and books as a
| concept, as they believed that writing things down and learning
| from that (as opposed to oral learning) was eroding abilities
| that relied on memory (which parallels really well with people
| currently complaining about search engines removing the hard
| need for memorizing things).
|
| However, knowing this only makes your original point stronger.
| osrec wrote:
| Funnily enough, I remember talking to a historian who said
| centuries ago, reading a book was considered "mindless
| entertainment", much as we think about our smartphones now.
| Eventually, reading evolved into being considered something
| generally "smart" people did.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| I hung out with some Vietnamese Zen buddhist monks on a
| monastery for a few days, and I was surprised to find that
| they viewed most fictional novels as mindless entertainment
| as well. Books with obvious educational value and religious
| texts were fine of course, but spending a few hours reading a
| novel would be lumped into the same general category as
| spending a few hours binging a Netflix show, so they did it
| sparingly.
| logosmonkey wrote:
| Many were quite opposed to books and have been throughout
| history. This is a fun read
| https://www.historytoday.com/archive/reading-bad-your-health
| hackmiester wrote:
| I'd also love to read more about this, similar to the sibling
| comment from carierx1, who appears to be hellbanned.
| yesenadam wrote:
| > carierx1, who appears to be hellbanned.
|
| If you read their 1 page comment history, there's dang
| explaining "We've banned this account." and why.
| carierx1 wrote:
| I'd love to read up more on that! Any links to literature on
| the topic?
| Andhurati wrote:
| Do books do the same damage to your eyes as screens?
| pintxo wrote:
| probably yes.
|
| At least with [1] tpart of the problem is (very simplified)
| focusing too long on objects too near (book, screen, ...)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-sightedness
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| There's always been a strong correlation between near-
| sightedness and reading books or looking at screens in
| childhood and early adulthood, and it was assumed for a
| long time that it was because of what you described
| (focusing on objects too near), but the latest research
| suggests something much more interesting is happening.
|
| Children who spend a couple hours per day outside have
| extremely low rates of near-sightedness, so they think
| there's something about the eyes being exposed to direct
| sunlight that's necessary for them to grow properly.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Does that matter? Running damages your knees. Playing tennis
| damages your elbow. Throwing a ball damages your shoulder. I
| do the thing I love while staring at the screen. If it
| damages my eyes that's the price I pay. I'm not going to stop
| doing it.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| If you believe my parents then all the years of reading books
| at night with almost no ambient light would have destroyed my
| eyes.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Probably? It's not like screens shoot death rays. It seems
| very likely that looking closely at patterns within a
| rectangle has the same effects whether it's made of paper or
| electronics.
| ping_pong wrote:
| CRTs used to emit X-rays, so they actually did shoot death
| rays.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Any ray is a death ray given sufficient dosage.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| And that was the day the Care Bears let their stares full
| power be known.
| outworlder wrote:
| They are backlit though, that's a big difference. Not sure
| if any issues would be caused by this.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Is it a big difference? If you take the reverse of ray
| tracing, why would a light beam of given intensity and
| wavelength act differently on my retina because it was
| directly transmitted vs reflected?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Backlit screens are brighter than a book under typical
| indoor lighting conditions. (Although this doesn't really
| support the original point, because the canonical
| alternative of going outside is much brighter than
| anything you do indoors.)
| TLightful wrote:
| Depends which game you're playing.
| sethammons wrote:
| do screen damage your eyes?
| givehimagun wrote:
| Can you provide evidence of where screens cause damage to
| eyes? My ophthalmologist shared with me that there is general
| irritation but we haven't been able to prove that screen
| times degrade eye sight over time.
| snazz wrote:
| Staring at anything too close to your eyes for a long
| period of time isn't good for them. If you are taking
| appropriate breaks, my understanding is that screen time is
| harmless.
| vzidex wrote:
| I've got the same understanding - I asked my
| ophthalmologist about it as well because my vision is
| already quite bad and I'm a computer engineer.
|
| For breaks, she recommended the "20/20/20 rule" - focus
| your eyes on something at least 20 feet away, for 20
| seconds, every 20 minutes of screen usage.
| snazz wrote:
| Yes, I've gotten that recommendation as well. Apparently
| more natural light exposure may also decrease the risk
| for nearsightedness. Having a window near my computer
| monitor makes it easy to remember to look outside
| whenever I'm not actively looking at the screen.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Do screens do damage to your eyes? The article lists some
| side effects, but I wouldn't consider that any sort of eye
| damage, and it's certainly not permanent.
| thisiszilff wrote:
| Hey, do you have specific examples of the damage you're
| concerned about?
|
| I've been reading up about this a lot as it is something that
| concerns me, but so far most of what I've says that longterm
| damage is mitigated by taking regular eye breaks (ie,
| starting at something 20+ feet away every 20 minutes for 20
| seconds) & getting enough sleep (giving the eyes time to
| properly rest). Are these mitigation strategies insufficient?
| [deleted]
| geebee wrote:
| No idea, but I'm not sure it's material to whether "staring
| at books" is a good description of reading.
| olodus wrote:
| Is that really supported by empirical trials? A short search
| online seems to point to that being somewhat disputed. I'm
| all for contradictory evidence though if you have some I
| missed.
|
| Yeah sure a screen is emitting light which maybe makes it
| worse for the eyes to look at in some ways and situations
| than a paper page, but "looking at light" is almost an
| oxymoron - isn't that what eyes do?
| groby_b wrote:
| Eyes usually look at diffusely reflected light, which has a
| different impact than direct light.
|
| A white reflective surface (whiteboard) in direct sunlight
| is 1.6cd/cm^2. Consumer monitors are ~300cd/cm^2
|
| (I'm not sure how much bearing this actually has on eye
| health, this is just to illustrate how looking at a monitor
| and at a piece of paper is _significantly_ different)
| gowld wrote:
| cd/m^2, not cd/cm^2
|
| I don't understand. Monitors are intended to be set to
| the same brightness as the ambient environment.
| 300cd/cm^2 is max, not average.
|
| Of course shining a monitor in your face at maximum
| brightness is bad, just like staring at a light bulb all
| day is bad.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| >A white reflective surface (whiteboard) in direct
| sunlight is 1.6cd/cm^2. Consumer monitors are ~300cd/cm^2
|
| Why does it hurt my eyes to look outside after a while
| looking at a screen in a well lit room? (the sun is not
| directly visible, just buildings, trees and sky)
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| Because the sun is an enormous sphere of hydrogen-helium
| plasma with a core that's undergoing fusion just due to
| gravity. Even indirect sunlight is still a very large
| amount of light and energy.
|
| I don't mean to sound flippant, but I think sometimes
| people forget just how insanely energetic stars of all
| sizes are.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| But GP's point was that a screen is much brighter than a
| sunlit surface. You can't both be right, or I'm missing
| something.
| yoz-y wrote:
| Hm, to be honest I find reading a book is direct sunlight
| quite more challenging than staring at a screen, because
| the reflected light is quite unbearable.
| lukevp wrote:
| Your units are wrong. Monitor brightness is measured in
| square meters not square centimeters. A square centimeter
| is 10,000 times smaller than a square meter.
| greenshackle2 wrote:
| You've got your units wrong. Very obviously so, to anyone
| who has ever taken a laptop outside in daytime.
| Cerium wrote:
| I think there is a unit error here. I believe that
| sunlight on white paper is about 1.6cd/cm^2, while
| consumer monitors are about 300cd/m^2 (meter not cm).
| Essentially, you want the brightness to match the
| environment.
|
| http://www.infocomm.org/filestore/display_specs_and_human
| _vi...
| groby_b wrote:
| There is indeed. Oops. I'd delete - no point polluting
| the Internet with more bad info - but time window has
| expired.
|
| Thank you for the correction!
| beervirus wrote:
| As noted, your units are wrong. A white reflective
| surface in sunlight is FAR brighter than a computer
| monitor.
| ergocoder wrote:
| Yes, it does, especially when reading in poor lighting and
| poor posture.
|
| It turns out the best way to not damage an organ is to not
| use it...
| jedberg wrote:
| Screens haven't damaged your eyes for a long time. That was
| only true on the old CRT displays, which literally shot high
| frequency EM at your eyes.
| chpmrc wrote:
| Where were you when my parents kept telling me "get off that
| computer"? :'(
| fsociety wrote:
| Such a good point. I had a small existential crisis watching
| programmers on YouTube/Twitch because I was focusing on the
| sounds of the keyboard typing and realizing that they are
| sitting in front of a screen typing for hours on end and how
| pointless it was.
|
| The second part of my crisis was that I was no different.
|
| After a few months of dealing with this I remembered that
| actually they are engaging with an entire world, and so was I.
| Rhetoric is so stupid sometimes.
| karatestomp wrote:
| I find seeing video of myself using a computer downright
| horrifying. I look like that? A good chunk of every day?
| Yikes.
|
| I mean I don't stop, because money, but I'd love to be able
| to take weeks- to months-long breaks from screens.
| ironmagma wrote:
| Never heard it put so plainly, that's awesome.
| literalanyone wrote:
| I really wish this was discussed more often. As a parent, I am
| constantly bombarded with people telling me I should limit my
| kids' "screen time."
|
| Generational skepticism of new technology is played out. Can we
| move on yet?
| s_dev wrote:
| Both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates limited their kids screentime.
| lhorie wrote:
| So did John Doe. Not sure I understand what the argument
| here is.
| jedberg wrote:
| I don't think either of those people are well known for
| their excellence in parenting.
| rietta wrote:
| I SURE am glad my parents didn't limit my screen time as a
| kid. I taught myself how to program from age 14 spending
| countless, countless late night hours staring at the DOS
| computer screen programming whatever caught my fancy. My
| career would look so much worse if my parents had forbade me
| from using the computer.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| careers to many of us are far from being the most important
| things in our abysmally short lives
| rietta wrote:
| I find my work to be enjoyable and am glad it supports my
| family and my team members who work for us. It started
| out as literally me working crazy sleepless hours coding
| freelance using the self taught skills.
| EamonnMR wrote:
| It's much harder to articulate "limit skinner box time" or
| "limit time spent using services that play on gambling
| impulses and give instant gratification like endless youtube
| playlists and mobile games."
| j45 wrote:
| I find it's more helpful to see screen time in two buckets..
|
| Creating/creative/thinking time spent on a screen is very
| different than passive consuming time.
| exclusiv wrote:
| I'm with you but I think social media should be limited when
| they get to that point.
|
| Some parents also think you should be playing with your child
| at all times and that's absurd too. It's good for kids to
| learn how to entertain themselves and be creative as
| individuals. There's not much more obnoxious than kids who
| grew up with their parents always playing with them or
| managing their attention and the kids complain about being
| bored.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Most kids complaining (loudly) about being bored are from
| my experience those that are over-saturated with TV,
| phones, tablets etc. that are almost always around. Once
| you remove this (ie trip to remote nature/vacation), they
| can go slightly mental for a while.
|
| It seems to me that the recipe for that ideal self-
| sufficient-loving-smart-social-over-achieving kids that all
| parents seem to want to have is sort of a pipe dream, and
| it always has been, just environment changed. We all want
| them, but few will end up being one and its often not that
| much a fault of a parent.
|
| Plenty of love, plenty of time together, some time alone,
| some with others, well-managed discipline seems like a good
| start. I would add some traveling and exposure to foreign,
| exotic cultures. One can't avoid screen time these days, I
| mean if I want to show my kid to parents during Covid, it
| has to be via webcam. But passive aimless consumption isn't
| one for me, and for sure it won't be for my kids. I'll
| rather put them into rock climbing course.
|
| What happened to topics about billionaires forbidding the
| access to phones & TV to their kids before age of 7?
| bityard wrote:
| Maybe those people telling you to limit screen time have
| different observations than you. It really depends on the
| individual child and my wife and I have first-hand experience
| with both ends of the spectrum.
|
| One of my kids thrives on screen time because she actively
| seeks out creative and informative non-passive activities.
| She is in control of her technology usage rather than the
| other way around. And even though we keep tabs on her, we
| trust her completely to manage her own time.
|
| The other gets limited screen time because if we don't put
| strict limits on it, he has absolutely immense self-control
| issues. He throws temper tantrums, claims to be bored all the
| time, picks arguments with others, refuses to follow simple
| instructions, and won't stay in bed for anything at bed time.
| Put simply: he displays all the hallmarks of chemical
| addiction with even a moderate amount of daily screen time.
| All of this is greatly decreased and comes very close to
| being a model citizen when we reduce his screen time down to
| only that which is required for his school work.
|
| And somewhere in there is the fact that human adolescent
| brains were not designed by evolution to sit indoors all day
| look at screens or books.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > Maybe those people telling you to limit screen time have
| different observations than you. It really depends on the
| individual child and my wife and I have first-hand
| experience with both ends of the spectrum.
|
| But for those observations, is the problem the _screen_ or
| what is _on the screen_? As a society, I 'd like us to
| focus less on the former and more on the latter.
|
| A screen is just a window that become anything, and I don't
| see why it should be inherently more or less educative than
| any other experience.
|
| Let's say in the future we get perfect VR headsets that can
| perfectly replicate every sense. Would the conversation be
| different?
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Well, I agree that the issue needs careful examination. Not
| all screen time is created equal. That said, to an average
| person, screen time does not really equal educational
| applications, writing code or even reading. Instead, to most,
| it tends to mean Facebook, Netflix, Youtube, and increasingly
| creepier games designed to suck you in and bleed you( or your
| parents ) dry.
|
| I am saying this as an expecting parent. My parents were
| raised without TV and there is a clear difference on how they
| processed the information presented to them. Heavens know I
| do not process it the same way what with being basically
| raised on internet and tv.
|
| In short, I do not think we should move on. I think it is
| worthwhile to ask more nuanced questions than 'is screen time
| bad-discuss'.
| jedberg wrote:
| Yeah me too. Anecdotally with my two children, they make huge
| educational jumps every time we increase their screen time.
|
| Screen time for us was playing games with an educational
| value and watching TV with at least some educational value.
|
| Recently we've started letting the five year old watch TV
| purely for entertainment, and the three year old sometimes
| watches too, but even then, both of them suddenly got a lot
| better at storytelling and coming up with their own original
| stories.
|
| So even "pure entertainment" seems to have educational value
| for the kids.
|
| The rule in our house is that you can't use a screen if the
| sun is up unless it's a weekend. That seems to be a good
| balance (although under the current conditions that's
| flexible if the screen is for an online class).
| ryandrake wrote:
| I think it's irrational. "Screen time" is today's Dungeons
| and Dragons and heavy metal. People are doing things
| differently today than I did at that age, therefore it's
| bad and needs to be limited.
| rxhernandez wrote:
| As a millennial who spent most of the past decade behind
| a computer screen (and probably the previous decade
| before that inside of books), I mourn the time I lost
| that could have been spent interacting with the world.
|
| Moreover, maybe both sides are right? Maybe you need
| heavy "screen interaction" to be successful in this world
| and maybe too much time is being consumed by screens
| rather than physically interacting with the world. Maybe
| there is a balance that isn't close to being struck by
| most.
|
| Maybe I would like my future children (if I have them) to
| interpret the world largely through their own eyes rather
| than a clickbait interpretation manufactured to get more
| money.
| noir_lord wrote:
| I love the fact that my generation (nearly 40) and the
| one after me both grew up playing ultra violent games and
| listening to rap etc and yet the crime statistics for
| violent crime are lower than they've been for about a
| century.
|
| Schadenfreude on that one.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| You started out I was expecting you to be very liberal with
| 'screen time', especially agreeing with the GP who seemed
| the same. But:
|
| > The rule in our house is that you can't use a screen if
| the sun is up unless it's a weekend
|
| I think that's actually limiting screentime more than most
| US households, you aren't actually on the "no need to limit
| screentime" side at all!
| jedberg wrote:
| It's important to note that we are night owls. The kids
| have TV basically from 7pm (when I turn on Jeopardy
| regardless of sunset) until they go to bed around 11pm.
| And during the current situation, sometimes they go to
| bed around 1-3am.
|
| So they actually get a lot more screen time than most of
| their peers.
| noir_lord wrote:
| Yeah, we've shifted to later as well, I'm a night owl by
| inclination, the boy seems to be as well, he'll crash
| from 3am til 12pm then get up.
|
| Given he's happy I'm not rocking that boat.
| tasuki wrote:
| Five and three year old go to bed around 1-3am? I don't
| necessarily have an opinion on that, but it surprises me
| :)
| jedberg wrote:
| They also wake up around 11am-1pm, so they still get 10
| hours of sleep. :)
|
| Turns out not every kid loves mornings!
| eanzenberg wrote:
| I think limiting screen time is to allow young kids to
| concentrate on tasks for longer periods of time. This is
| recommended by most pediatricians.
|
| Our kids, who are home with us and in the same room as
| where both me and my wife work, are able to play by
| themselves for the most part every weekday from 9-12pm.
| deeblering4 wrote:
| My partner and I were just having a similar conversation.
| About how we "feel bad" when our child uses their tablet a
| lot in a day but we're not quite sure why.
|
| When using the tablet they are playing educational games
| about sorting/identifying shapes and colors, painting by
| numbers, solving puzzles, etc.
|
| Or watching/listening to songs that are teaching them
| colors, numbers, letters, etc. And dancing around because
| they like the music.
|
| These are drilling home lessons in a fun and repetitive way
| that we simply could not do for our child otherwise. And
| we've seen educational jumps from it too.
|
| Plus, let's be real, I make my living through a screen. So
| why is "screen time" stigmatized as a bad thing?
|
| I've come to the realization that screens are not an evil
| thing to be minimized at all costs. They are the most
| powerful tool of the modern age.
|
| It's just important to get some exercise and fresh air too.
| goostavos wrote:
| Eh, I'm in camp "limit their screen time" if the screen time
| is all junk food. I also don't have kids, so what do I
| actually know? :) The only context for this opinion knowledge
| of the army of adults whose job it is to "maximize
| engagement" and give little dopamine hits.
|
| Some apps just seem predatory.
| jedberg wrote:
| > Some apps just seem predatory.
|
| Oh boy are they ever. We spend a lot of time curating the
| kids' screen time. We try every app first.
|
| Youtube Kids is banned. Youtube's AI sucks at vetting
| content and they refuse to put humans on the job.
|
| The apps from PBS are all gold. Disney+ has so for proven
| to be good at making sure all the content is kid
| appropriate.
| falcor84 wrote:
| YouTube Kids also lacks an option to disable Autoplay,
| which makes it pure evil in my eyes.
| jedberg wrote:
| Amusingly PBS kids is the only streaming app I've seen
| that doesn't ask "are you still there". We've left that
| one running overnight by accident and it just keeps going
| and going.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| I dunno why we can't just hand select any video from
| youtube for youtube kids? I don't need youtube algos to
| recommend bullshit to my kids and I don't need youtube to
| control what i show to my kids.
| jedberg wrote:
| You can create a playlist if you want to hand curate a
| list. But the whole reason I use streaming services is so
| I can pay someone else to curate the content for me.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| I can't put a playlist into YouTube kids. I tried.
| jedberg wrote:
| Here's a video on how to do it:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjKmQwhSk1s
|
| It's not exactly a playlist, but you can hand select
| content.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Thanks will check it out.
|
| Edit: I watched the video. I'll have another look on the
| app tomorrow but I'm pretty sure that video does what I'm
| complaining about. The catalogue is pitiful. I just want
| access to all of YouTube. It's not a big ask but they
| won't make $$ off of Showing adult videos to kids so they
| won't offer that.
| sigfubar wrote:
| It's the parents' job to teach kids how to tell junk food
| from healthy food; predatory apps from apps which add
| value; "you're the product" from "you're consuming the
| product". I do this with my kid, and technology is a boon
| for her. However, most adults aren't qualified to make the
| distinction between good and evil, so their kids suffer
| too.
| eanzenberg wrote:
| Lots of "teaching" is literally excluding from
| consumption for young kids. Parents know better than
| their kids, why entrust that kind of advanced decision
| making within them?
| filoleg wrote:
| >Lots of "teaching" is literally excluding from
| consumption for young kids
|
| Sure, I agree with you. Limit what they have access to
| while using the screen, but not the actual screen time.
|
| Somewhat analogous to the difference between limiting
| junk food from kids' diets vs. making them go full vegan
| and doing intermittent fasting.
| eanzenberg wrote:
| Like most things moderation is key.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > why entrust that kind of advanced decision making
| within them?
|
| Because then there's a hope that they'll actually learn
| the underlying principle and make similar decisions in
| situations where someone else is not directly in control
| of their behavior.
|
| There are kids who don't get to eat ice cream before
| dinner at home because that's the rule, who will happily
| do so when over at someone else's house without their
| parents around to enforce that rule. Then there are kids
| who actually understand _why_ they shouldn 't eat ice
| cream before dinner, who will decline to do so even if
| they have the opportunity. (That doesn't mean they'll
| exercise perfect judgment every time, but then, there's
| also no guarantee they'll follow rules that aren't being
| enforced.)
|
| It's important to develop the critical thinking skills to
| filter out "junk food" content.
|
| (To clarify: I'm not talking about children too young to
| understand the concept, I'm talking about children more
| than old enough to make such decisions in an informed
| way. Roughly speaking, think 12, not 3.)
| acituan wrote:
| > It's the parents' job to teach kids how to tell junk
| food from healthy food
|
| I agree with the sentiment, but an important point is not
| the forget that behind the curtains there is an army of
| product managers, AI PhDs and tons of data running a
| version of Truman Show on each one of us. Usually "you're
| the product" is blended with "you're consuming the
| product that adds value". For example, you can search and
| land to a video to watch something educational, but
| opaque recommendation algorithms, un-turn-offable
| autoplays, nagging notifications and whatnot will try to
| convince you like an optimally-annoying salesman to stay
| just a little more and pay them in attention and ad
| revenue, or get you those dopamine hits so that you will
| want to come back to "just check" the app in a pavlovian
| fashion.
|
| Whenever you or your kid interact with a screen, you are
| potentially interacting not only with a machinery with
| inherent information asymmetry but also one that we train
| every day exactly how much abuse we are willing to take.
| For further reading see Tristan Harris and the design
| ethics questions he brings into light.
| egman_ekki wrote:
| There's a really interesting book called Digital Dementia
| that describes effects of modern digital tools on our brain.
| I'm not saying it's 100% correct, but interesting read
| nevertheless.
| eanzenberg wrote:
| >> Generational skepticism of new technology is played out.
| Can we move on yet?
|
| Is it, though? Spending lots of time in front of a TV is
| still considered harmful as it was half a century ago.
| gfxgirl wrote:
| I totally agree with you.
|
| I also think we might want to compare. I suspect 150 years ago
| most people stared a shovel 34 years of their life or a clothes
| washing bowl etc..
| nixpulvis wrote:
| You can make it out to be whatever you want. But there _is_ a
| physical difference between a screen 's light emissions and the
| light perceived from paper. I've always been curious exactly
| _how_ much different, but anyone claiming otherwise is suspect
| in my eyes.
| Footkerchief wrote:
| Your intuition is correct. Even if they have the same
| apparent color, two light sources can have drastically
| different spectra, which is perceptible. Some info here:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Drooling too? Or just staring? How about "looking at",
| "watching", "reading", or just "using"?
| ryeguy_24 wrote:
| Haven't we also gained 34 years in longevity in the last 100
| years? So, net net we are good? :)
|
| More seriously, what types of activities did screens replace? Was
| it talking to other people? Physical activities/labor? Reading?
| Nothing?
| srl wrote:
| I know your first comment is mainly in jest, but...
| https://www.seniorliving.org/history/1900-2000-changes-life-...
|
| For white folk in the US, even the life expectancy at birth
| (arguably an inflated metric) hasn't increased by 34 years
| since 1900. For all people in the US (basically everywhere
| else, too, I think), that ~30-40 years is dominated by
| infant/youth mortality getting driven hard towards 0.
| jayroh wrote:
| Ugh, I did not need to see this today :(
| scollet wrote:
| Ironic
| chadlavi wrote:
| speak for yourself, some of us are definitely above average
|
| >_>
| redsymbol wrote:
| Aaaand now I feel the sudden urge to get away from this screen
| and go walk through some trees. I'll see ya all later.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I'm an ape man i'm an ape ape man no i'm an ape man
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRHqs8SffDo
| onion2k wrote:
| I'm happy to be above average at something at last.
| austinshea wrote:
| Staring is an embarrassing word for this person to have imposed
| upon the actual study.
|
| Science journalism is a real problem.
| patrickcteng wrote:
| So, as a child my mom always insisted on me reading with lots of
| lights turned on. She claimed that reading the dark causes short
| sightedness and etc.
|
| Now, as an adult, I find that I have my screen's brightness
| turned up way more than my peers. For example, although it's
| currently very sunny right now in LA, I have my brightness turned
| up 100% on my 16" MBP. Though, in the evenings, it's more
| comfortable at 3 or 4 steps down from 100%.
|
| I can't help but to wonder -- did she condition my eye to be less
| sensitive to light and have thus slightly ruined my low-light
| vision?
| kingbirdy wrote:
| Why wouldn't you have your brightness at 100% if it was sunny?
| You need the backlight to be bright to avoid it being washed
| out by sunlight. It would be weird if you said you used 100%
| brightness in the dark, but that's perfectly reasonable when
| it's sunny.
| jedberg wrote:
| Protip for everyone, since I've done a lot of research on this:
|
| If at all possible, cut the blue from your screen at all times.
|
| I use flu.x [0] and even during the day I set my color temp to
| 5800K instead of the standard 6500K. You won't notice the change
| much, but it will make a huge difference on how tired your eyes
| get.
|
| I also go down to 1850K at night (candlelight basically) to both
| ease strain on my eyes and not mess up my sleep. It makes a
| noticeable difference.
|
| [0] https://justgetflux.com
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| I set mine to 3800K for 24 hours a day. Even during the day
| under florescent lights and an open window, if I have to toggle
| it off for any reason it feels like my eyes are being stabbed
| with tiny knives.
|
| I don't know about the sleep stuff (is that hard science yet?)
| but I personally definitely staved off eye strain and dry eye
| issues with f.lux and no other changes.
| jedberg wrote:
| > I set mine to 3800K for 24 hours a day.
|
| Sometimes when I travel to the other side of the planet but
| don't update my laptop clock, it goes into "night mode"
| midday. I can use it but I find it jarring with the natural
| light.
|
| > I don't know about the sleep stuff (is that hard science
| yet?)
|
| They have links to studies on the flux page [0] although I'm
| not sure how much of that is peer reviewed or if the sample
| sizes are big enough.
|
| I know that it makes a difference for me. My sleep quality
| went way up when I started using flux, and it goes down when
| I look at screens without it too late at night (like my not-
| so-smart-TV).
|
| [0] https://justgetflux.com/research.html
| nsilvestri wrote:
| I've had sunset-synchronized f.lux/redshift for 7 or 8 years
| now. Turning on redshift during work revealed I had pavlovian
| conditioned myself into getting sleepy when the blue light goes
| away.
| jedberg wrote:
| Hah! Never thought about that side effect. I did both at the
| same time so never experienced that.
|
| Good to know.
| M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote:
| any thoughts on blue light glasses? or setting your screens to
| grayscale?
| jedberg wrote:
| > any thoughts on blue light glasses?
|
| I tried them. They worked well enough, but I don't like to
| wear glasses so I stopped. Also I didn't like how they cut
| _all_ blue light, including the blue from the sunlight. It 's
| important to get blue light during the day to help your body
| regulate it's sleep hormone production.
|
| > or setting your screens to grayscale?
|
| That's orthogonal. The white part of the grayscale still has
| blue light in it. Grayscale is good for helping with
| attention issues, but not blue light issues.
| M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote:
| why attention?
| jedberg wrote:
| The OS likes to use color to grab your attention. Red
| notification dots, bright orange tabs (like on HN), etc.
|
| By going grayscale, it limits how much attention the OS
| (or any other app) can grab your attention with color.
|
| I tried it, it annoyed the heck out of me, so I went
| back. But it did work -- it made me less interested in
| using my devices.
| avgDev wrote:
| Average Adult Will Spend 60% of Their Existence With Their Eyes
| Open.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Oh, I can totally beat that and do way more than 34 years.
| scottLobster wrote:
| So a few minutes ago I wrote code for a company, producing
| economic value. Last night I kept up with family, maintaining
| healthy personal relationships. Right now I'm engaging in
| intellectual discussion of major issues with other people. And
| last night I watched an episode of Mr. Robot, engaging my brain
| with a stimulating story. And yes, sometimes I just look at
| animal gifs on imgur.
|
| I see no problem continuing any of this for 34 collective years.
| gowld wrote:
| How much of that time was caring for your eye health so you
| don't go blind early?
| sekai wrote:
| With that logic, 10% WOW players from 2009 would be half-
| blind, but they're not
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| Is there anything to indicate that excessive screen usage can
| cause blindness? Especially since LCD aren't that bad
| concerning eye strain.
| kart23 wrote:
| I get pretty nasty headaches and my eyes start hurting
| after looking at monitors with PWM backlights. Some of my
| screens are fine, some begin to hurt my eyes after an hour
| or so.
| scottLobster wrote:
| I'm 32 and needed glasses for the first time last year, just
| mild nearsightedness which runs in my family, and I'm
| actually doing better than most (my mom and sister both
| needed glasses as teenager).
|
| I eat healthy/exercise and use dark-mode themes where
| available to minimize glare. That's it's for eye health. I
| wonder if the negative association of eye health to screen
| time is less about the screens and more about high blood
| pressure brought on by being sedentary. High blood pressure
| absolutely destroys the eyes over time.
| carlisle_ wrote:
| This seems quite sensationalist.
| sinity wrote:
| You don't go blind from staring at a screen. Claims otherwise
| are the same as 5G conspiracy theories. Photons are photons.
|
| You might get issues from focusing at the same distance all
| the time. Or that theory about dopamine may be true - but if
| anything, screens are an _improvement_ over things like paper
| books. And it applies to adolescence anyway.
|
| And nearsightedness is not anywhere near going _blind_.
| stevebmark wrote:
| Part of how myopia works: When your peripheral vision is in focus
| too much, because something is close to your face like a screen,
| your eye (which grows on its own, without brain involvement), is
| told to grow longer to to help reduce the over sharpening of the
| world it thinks it has.
|
| This happens in developing humans, at some point in adulthood
| it's suspected this stops (although some people see worsening
| myopia past the typical age range where it stops).
| M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote:
| would it help to keep your phone or monitor further away?
| stevebmark wrote:
| Having less focus in your peripheral vision might help slow
| myopia progression, so possibly. However wearing glasses and
| contacts automatically add more focus to peripheral vision,
| signaling the eye to grow. So moving something further away
| from your face while wearing glasses or contacts may have
| less of an effect. Having periods of blurry vision, like
| looking at something far away for some time without glasses
| or contacts, may be beneficial in that it may signal the eye
| to become less football shaped to help correct for the
| blurriness it now is experiencing. However I haven't seen any
| evidence this can reverse or improve myopia, rather this just
| seems to slow its progression.
| veddox wrote:
| > Having periods of blurry vision, like looking at
| something far away for some time without glasses or
| contacts, may be beneficial in that it may signal the eye
| to become less football shaped to help correct for the
| blurriness it now is experiencing.
|
| I literally just had that yesterday, and was wondering what
| it was. My eyes have always been very good, but I have been
| a bit worried of late after a few such blurry episodes...
| stevebmark wrote:
| no, I mean intentionally unfocusing your eyes by looking
| at something far away without wearing correction.
| Involuntary blurriness or double vision is unrelated.
| ttizya20 wrote:
| phd's will spend 5 years starring at paper
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| Some good tips to prevent myopia:
|
| - 30/30/30 rule: Every 30 minutes look at something 30 feet away
| for 30 seconds
|
| - Take regular walks outside: it will lower your blood pressure,
| and expose your eyes to violet light
|
| - ensure brightness of environment closely matches brightness of
| screen to prevent eye strain
| matthewfelgate wrote:
| We spend 34 years of our lives staring at computer screens.
|
| The rest of the time is just wasted.
| fgnewsom wrote:
| GAVIN NEWSOM NEEDS TO GOTO JAIL! FUCK HIM!
| mchusma wrote:
| Average adult will spend 34 years with a miracle portal into
| infinite knowledge and possibility.
| tbizz9000 wrote:
| YES, it is indeed wednesday... my dude
| karatestomp wrote:
| Hardly. Scratch most topics past the surface level and _if you
| 're lucky_ the Web can find you the book you need. Usually
| though you'll need to find the best book the Web can find you,
| then use that book and/or correspondence with experts to find
| the ones you actually need.
|
| The problem seems to be a mix of tons of stuff just not being
| on the Web yet, even decades in (some of it's in ebooks,
| though, yes, but a whole lot isn't) and Google having given up
| on "organizing the world's knowledge" or whatever their
| supposed mission was (now it's plainly "organize the world's
| advertising dollars into our bank account") so it may be there
| but good luck finding it.
| akiselev wrote:
| Thirty years ago you couldn't scratch past the surface of
| more than a few dozen topics based on your local library's
| availability, _if you were lucky_ to have a decent one to
| begin with.
|
| Between libgen, scihub, Google Books, Project Gutenberg,
| torrent sites, and the rest of the internet we've got access
| to almost all of the world's knowledge _for free_ with plenty
| of avenues to interact with experts using a variety of
| different channels for knowledge that hasn 't been put to
| paper yet.
| karatestomp wrote:
| Making piracy easy _has_ been super-helpful. Libgen doesn
| 't have (anywhere near) everything but it's great for
| surveying a field and picking up some portion of the must-
| have resources.
|
| > access to almost all of the world's knowledge for free
|
| I'd guess we've got access to ~10% of it (but it's a good
| 10%!) for free, ~30% paid (but usually piratable!), and the
| remainder unavailable as a paid electronic resource but
| _maybe_ (often not) as a paid paper one and _maybe_ (often
| not) available pirated--maybe you can at least _locate_ or
| _learn of its existence_ with the Web, but possibly it 's
| totally unknown to the Web outside of maybe a reference in
| some books that happen to be digitized (this does actually
| happen, though you do usually have to get a _little_
| obscure before it does, but sometimes not as obscure as one
| might think).
|
| [EDIT] to be clear I think the Web is an excellent research
| tool, _however_ an awful lot of its value in that role is
| from piracy (saving me, say, having to inter-library-loan
| or buy a book just to find the books that book name-drops
| in its preface, or to read one relevant chapter, or to see
| the book 's index so I can find out whether I need it in
| the first place). I think its containing anything like "all
| the world's knowledge", even for liberal values of "all",
| is far from true, and there's a risk of thinking if
| something exists it's _probably_ available as a digital
| resource delivered over the Web (far from true), and if it
| doesn 't then surely it's at least possible to find out
| about its _existence_ on the Web (also not true), and if
| neither of those are true it must be something of no value
| whatsoever to anyone or wildly obscure (not true).
|
| [EDIT EDIT] then even if it _is_ on the web, it can be
| really hard to find something that 's not on one of a few
| major sites using search. More so than it used to be. It
| can take so damn long that pirating and reading a book on
| the topic on Libgen can be faster than finding the same
| info on the open web, even if it's there, which is pretty
| damning of the state of web indexing. As I wrote in another
| comment on this thread, it was once possible to be fairly
| sure when one had reached the edge of Google's knowledge
| and the thing you're looking for _was not_ in its index--
| such certainty is now almost impossible, mostly because of
| how Google search (and seemingly all other web search
| tools) has changed, not because of increased total content.
| asdff wrote:
| Proportionally, it might not be much better today. Maybe
| 1/100,000 books is exactly the piece of information you
| need. Certainly the rest of the books aren't total crap
| either, they at least passed that bar of getting the book
| published and making some sense. I wouldn't be surprised if
| the signal to noise ratio on the internet today wasn't
| 1/billion web pages with all the automatic SEO crap and
| misinformation out there today. The sites and resources you
| listed are popular in tech circles, but are not mainstream
| at all. Then again if they were, they probably wouldn't
| exist as we know them, if at all.
| castis wrote:
| Google, for all its current problems, _has_ made organization
| of the worlds knowledge vastly better than it was before they
| showed up.
|
| I could be wrong but just surrounding the field of software
| development, there's probably already more relevant
| information on the internet than I could possibly consume in
| my life.
| rfdearborn wrote:
| Approximately once per week I observe a comment on HN saying
| approximately "search doesn't work anymore." Why is this? Why
| do I only observe such complaints here?
| karatestomp wrote:
| Lots of people here who were and remember being "good at
| search" and able to make exactly the thing they're looking
| for shoot to the top 3 spots on the results screen and
| being able to craft a series of searches such that, if they
| all failed, one could be _pretty damn sure_ the information
| wasn 't online or at least was hidden from the Google bot,
| neither of which are really possible anymore. The 100th
| time one attempts to find something on Google that one
| _knows_ is there but just _cannot_ get to show up no matter
| how many rare keywords one uses, one concludes Google has
| lost some pretty significant utility it used to have and
| starts to wonder what one is not finding when one _doesn
| 't_ know exactly the page one is trying to find.
|
| (of course it may be better for lots of other things, but
| for a fairly large set of "finding things on the Web" tasks
| it's _way_ worse than it used to be, to the point of being
| nearly useless--in part I think this is because sometime
| around 2008-2010 they stopped trying to fight webspammers,
| choosing instead to embrace some set of them provided they
| play by Google 's rules, and downrank anything that wasn't
| "well-behaved" webspam or well-known sites _hard_ )
| bityard wrote:
| I definitely remember a time when Google was much, much
| better at returning relevant results for technical
| content. My feeling is that there are (at least) two
| factors at play:
|
| 1) Google and other search engines revised their
| algorithms more than a decade ago. Instead of showing you
| results for what you searched for, they now show you what
| they _think you meant_ based on your search history and
| the search histories of millions of other users. This
| means searching for uncommon topics and phrases get you
| useless results. And you can't disable this functionality
| because it's baked into the core of how Google indexes
| and categories the content that it slurps up from the
| web.
|
| 2) Blogspam authors and e-commerce sites have gotten SEO
| down to a science, to the point where searching for
| nearly _anything_ not super specific no longer gets you
| _information_ about that particular thing, it gets you
| blogspam articles filled with fluff and affiliate links,
| or half-broken e-commerce sites trying to sell you
| something vaguely related to what you searched for. This
| is not technically Google's fault but there is a lot they
| could do to curb this, but all that ad revenue on those
| sites is how they earn that sweet sweet lucre.
| karatestomp wrote:
| > This is not technically Google's fault but there is a
| lot they could do to curb this, but all that ad revenue
| on those sites is how they earn that sweet sweet lucre.
|
| That had been going on for years, but there'd be clear
| times when Google got ahead of it and results would get
| much better for a while, and because search was so much
| more precise it was possible to work around the spam.
| That those good times stopped happening and results are
| now a consistent and fairly high level of "spam-filled"
| by content that's seemed pretty much the same _sort_ of
| crap for years, leads me to conclude they stopped trying.
| IIRC right around then they stopped the "no no, our ads
| our different and good, they're just text and always
| formatted the same way so it's easy to tell what they
| are" and became just another banner ad slinger.
|
| [EDIT] just mined Slashdot for that last bit, looks like
| that happened around the last half of '07, which roughly
| checks out with my recollection of Google search abruptly
| getting much worse around '08-'09 then never getting
| better again.
| joefourier wrote:
| That's an awfully pessimistic view of things. I've studied
| some fairly obscure corners of computer science and the
| Internet has allowed me to get instant access to mountains of
| scientific papers, a huge variety of books (many of which are
| out of circulation), incredibly high-quality courses on
| maths, DSP, algorithms and the like.
|
| Previously I would have had no way of accessing any of that
| information unless I happened to be at the right university
| with the right department, or in some high-level research
| institute.
| karatestomp wrote:
| Certain fields are much better off than others. One might
| expect that CS would be among the best-represented on the
| Web.
| dplavery92 wrote:
| I've definitely felt and experienced the situation you're
| describing, but I think you might be painting with too broad
| a brush.
|
| Sources like ArXiv, Google Scholar, and Semantic Scholar have
| made it really easy for me to access tons of deep,
| academic/professional level knowledge in my field
| instantaneously and for free. I know that Physics, Math, and
| Computer Science are relatively uniquely privileged when it
| comes to ArXiv, but even paywalled journals are _more_
| accessible in the internet age than they were before. I 'm
| even able to find public-released technical info from the DoD
| through DTIC that I don't think I would ever know what to
| request without having it come up through search engines.
|
| Likewise, tons of undergrad classes through MIT and the Ivies
| are available for free on Youtube; more still are available
| with exercises and some form of certification through
| services like Coursera, EdX, and Udacity. Some graduate and
| professional-level courses are starting to come online
| through these institutions as well; the Institute for
| Advanced Study has started releasing its lectures on Youtube
| over the past few years.
|
| I can find manuals for my car, my appliances, and all my
| electronics online. I have access to all sorts of do-it-
| yourself how-tos on Youtube when I want to do work around the
| house. I have StackOverflow for when I have challenges with
| programming languages and tools that aren't clear from the
| docs, and the rest of the StackOverflow network when I have
| questions that are more specific to my problem domain.
|
| There's more throughout all sorts of fields: instant
| translations with Google translate and langauges lessons
| through DuoLingo, Rosetta Stone, et al; music lessons on
| Youtube, etc.
|
| Again, I've been through the experience where some older
| materials just aren't as available as I'd like, and where the
| normal search tools only bring you part of the way. But I
| think you're taking a lot for granted here.
| eyko wrote:
| It's not for us to judge what sort of information constitutes
| knowledge.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I'm not sure about that. The topics I want to dig into I
| usually find it's harder to get the level of depth I want on
| a topic in book form than I do than to find videos on
| YouTube.
|
| Some random examples:
|
| - I'm interested in turbine engines, AgentJayZ has a while
| host of videos taking real turbine engines apart, talking
| about obscure features like compressor variable valve vanes
| etc.
|
| - Plumbing, almost everything I've ever needed to know about
| plumbing has been available from PlumberParts / dereton33.
|
| - Woodworking, I basically learned everything I know from
| watching people like Matthias Wandel.
|
| - Recently I've been digging to electronics, I have an
| excellent book "Practical Electronics for Inventors" but
| every now and again I need to hear a different take on the
| same things and invariably there is a good video or article
| which clears it up for me.
|
| What's more, to get the level of detail these guys show for
| free in book form would mean investing in some seriously
| expensive books, most of which hide the interesting parts
| under a lot of uninteresting maths.
| gibolt wrote:
| What a great point. If I want to know how to do something
| physical, or learn how a piece of hardware works, YouTube
| is the place.
|
| Since it is Google, how awesome would it be if videos also
| had related web searches attached to them, instead of just
| related videos. How-tos could have links to the original
| manual, the most detailed maintenance manuals, or patents
| and blogs detailing the physics behind how that thing
| works. Probably not going to happen and would only be for
| power users, but it could be so powerful.
| karatestomp wrote:
| Oh yeah, for the subset of content that is "watch an expert
| do a thing" the Web has become _extremely_ good. Nothing
| before touches it. In part I think it 's remained so
| because almost all the content is on one site--there's no
| web search involved in finding it at all, you just search
| Youtube (which is owned by the main company that might help
| you find videos on other sites). If Google'd found a way to
| reward putting academic & deep cultural-knowledge material
| on a platform they owned such that they had a near-
| monopoly, perhaps that site would be good. The web at-large
| might remain basically useless for it (or, probably, even
| worse, as everyone went to that single platform) such that
| it depends on one's perspective whether it's the _Web_
| delivering value or just _Google 's platform_ that could be
| served just about any damn way at this point (if they
| decided to transition over to a new non-Web protocol _just_
| for Youtube and put it in Chrome they might well succeed in
| forcing everyone else to adopt it)
| pharke wrote:
| Due to the changing nature of the web I'd even say that the
| sum total of useful information is actually decreasing year
| over year. I believe we hit an inflection point a decade or
| more ago when the number of people with specialized knowledge
| and skills who were publishing information about their domain
| online was surpassed by the new "content creators" whose
| primary goal was to optimize for clicks and ad revenue. This
| is unevenly applied across different areas of knowledge, the
| amount of information about computer and media related topics
| has increased but other areas seem to have realized a sharp
| decrease. I don't have any hard numbers to support this, only
| the feeling of it becoming increasingly difficult to find
| expert information in many areas. More and more I have to
| resort to public domain books as the only substantive source.
| There's just a general sense of something deeply wrong with
| the current state of the web.
| nbardy wrote:
| Even if the content creators overwhelm the rest of the
| crowd now, you can still find experts and their content
| continues to pile up. For example, iq of internet graphics
| is still adding incredible content to his site 10 years
| later. https://iquilezles.org/. He's not the only example
| of this. There may be a higher noise to quality ratio, but
| the quality content is still growing, you just have to get
| better at tuning out the noise.
| asdff wrote:
| Discoverability is still hard when noise increases by the
| day, and search engines have become useless to find
| anything meaningful that isn't playing the SEO game.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| This might be field dependent. All my research is based on
| scientific journal articles and reviews, which are
| electronically available, and books are more vanity affairs
| youareostriches wrote:
| Surely you started with textbooks.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| College textbooks in cognitive sciences are the epitome
| of "scratching the surface"
| marcosdumay wrote:
| "A screen" is not "the web".
|
| That book will probably be in a screen too, since it's way
| too hard to carry it around on paper.
|
| Even "correspondence with experts" will be on a screen.
| JSavageOne wrote:
| Realistically the majority of that time is spent working for
| some company, writing mundane CRUD applications and gluing APIs
| together
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| And will use that infinite potential to binge watch Friends for
| the 11th time.
| dvtrn wrote:
| I'll have you know this is a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
| household, and we are on our _12th_ rewatch of the Dominion
| War, tyvm.
| pintxo wrote:
| If Netflix ever adds Spin City to their catalogue I will be
| in trouble.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| watching newsradio here, with rpcs3 classics on the
| second monitor
| dvtrn wrote:
| Let me tell you how much productivity I got back when
| they took Frasier off last year.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Newsradio for this guy
| cableshaft wrote:
| I have a folder of the entire series of Newsradio that's
| been played in the background (while I do other things, I
| don't even watch it, just listen)... sooo many times.
| Corner Gas is the only other show I've played as often.
| matwood wrote:
| I'm going through TNG right now, and the stories still hold
| up very well. There are a lot more useful lessons in them
| than I remember when watching as a kid. I really do like
| the humankind aspirational nature of the show also.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I went through TNG again a while ago and I was struck by
| how much I'd forgotten, and how I'd kind of lost my way
| in terms of my beliefs. I grew up wanting to be like
| Picard, and watching them again reminded me of that.
| bityard wrote:
| I grew up on TNG and I'm now re-watching it all with my
| daughter. The first season is just as rough as I remember
| it, but I love how much of the core themes and character
| of TNG they got absolutely right from the very first
| episode.
|
| One thing about the show that struck me is that I'm
| amazed at how inter-personal communication has changed
| over the decades. I thought I remembered everyone being a
| lot more easy-going when I was a kid and then decided
| that I must have imagined it. But no, sure enough, right
| there on Star Trek you see the characters poking light
| fun at each other not long after they first met, even in
| a military setting.
|
| Today people seem to take themselves much more seriously.
| You have to be a lot more guarded and diplomatic,
| sometimes even with people you know very well, otherwise
| you risk alienation or embarrassment. I know TV is not
| reality, yadda yadda, but there's a kernel of truth in
| there somewhere.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| It might be part of the TV era, but I imagine having
| people who aren't constantly on the defensive would fit
| into Gene's vision of a better tomorrow. If you can
| assume that everyone in the room is on the same team and
| wants the best for everyone, you probably would feel less
| offended by gentle jabs.
| smegger001 wrote:
| only your 12... i may have problem.
| Skunkleton wrote:
| Deep Space Nine is probably my favorite TV series of all
| time. I've only watched it twice though. Probably gotta
| step it up if I am going to hang with this crowd.
| gfxgirl wrote:
| I have a large collection of movies and ripped them all to
| Kodi. I was going though marking a bunch as watched and I
| started to get slightly upset at myself as I marked each one
| and thought "watched that one 8-10 times, watched that one
| 5-6 times, watched that one 3-4 times, watched that one 5-6
| times, etc etc. for many many movies. And there are TV series
| I've watch multiple times as well. So much time. Sure I
| enjoyed it but counting it all up is still shocking what else
| that time might have been used for.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| If you assume that rest time had no value, possibly, yeah,
| but we have fun for a reason. Productivity can't be the
| only thing in our lives.
| volune wrote:
| The medieval peasant spent how much time staring at dirt?
| groby_b wrote:
| Few of them stared at brightly glowing dirt, though. And few of
| them continually stared at dirt a foot or two in front of their
| faces.
|
| There's debate how much damage that difference causes, but
| pretending there's no difference is an unhelpful approach.
| throwaway8941 wrote:
| Tone down your brightness then? I use heavily customized dark
| themes absolutely everywhere, and my screen is hardly
| brighter than dirt. I have no problem looking at it for 30+
| hours straight (though I don't do this anymore for other
| reasons.)
| acituan wrote:
| Hominids spent 7 million years evolving on that "dirt" they
| stared at.
| aupchurch wrote:
| These stats always freak me out when you extrapolate it over the
| long term. The average adult will also spend 2 years commuting or
| an entire year of their life sitting on the toilet.
|
| Lot's of wasted time here people. I think this also shows the
| power of what we can accomplish by spending 10 minutes a day
| doing something.
| woobar wrote:
| If they sit on the toilet while staring at the screen, what
| bucket these years are assigned to? I.e. these extrapolations
| could result in multiples of your lifespan.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| It can be quite difficult to convert random time savings into
| valuable time.
|
| 1) Is marginal free time actually converted to value (eg,
| Quality study time vs TikTok infinite scrolling)
|
| 2) Can Marginal free time be chained into valuable blocks
| (saving 1 minute commuting such that you're 2 more minute earl
| y for 30 appointments, you cannot chain that into a 1 hour
| study block.
|
| Edit: I will say Ankidroid has helped me get some value out of
| random deadspace though.
| kazen44 wrote:
| why would spending time on the toilet be wasted time?
|
| actually, sometimes, doing practically nothing is very valuable
| for one's state of mind.
| jliptzin wrote:
| This was already true for people I know who were watching TV all
| day since the 70s
| napster4lyfe wrote:
| time well spent, imo
| nemo wrote:
| I used to spend a lot of time in book/magazine/paper reading. Now
| I read off screens mostly. 34 years of my life spent reading
| would be time well spent regardless of the medium.
| sunstone wrote:
| Formerly the average adult spent 34 years staring at text on the
| printed page.
| derekp7 wrote:
| This article is about the effects of eye strain, not the overall
| mental health of looking at content on a screen.
|
| With that in mind, what is it about a screen (emitted light) that
| is worse than outdoors reflect light? One item I can think of, is
| that looking at something with reflected natural light, the iris
| contracts based on the total amount of light hitting it. Whereas
| a screen may be brighter than the ambient light in the room,
| causing more of a point source of light to hit the retinas that
| would normally happen (which is why I've always found it more
| comfortable to watch TV with some other light on in the room vs.
| the room in total darkness).
| volkk wrote:
| i dont know whether this is accurate, but i've found lighter
| color schemes for coding muuuch more pleasing on my eyes than
| extremely dark/contrast-y ones
| ishjoh wrote:
| My optometrist mentioned that one big problem with being in
| front of a screen is that the focal depth is close and
| constant, and that can cause headaches and other issues. She
| recommended I stare out a window or make a conscious effort to
| look into the distance for 10 minutes every hour.
| nerdponx wrote:
| This is what I've always heard as well. Your eye muscles end
| up "fixed" in a small range of positions, whereas with
| looking at stuff off-screen (and especially outdoors) your
| eye muscles do a wider variety of movements.
| manmal wrote:
| Screens are optimized for energy efficiency, so their emissions
| are restricted to a narrow range of visible frequencies. They
| don't even really cover the whole range of colors, but mix them
| by combining RGB, which isn't the real thing. Eg you can make
| something looking like violet light by mixing blue and red, but
| it's not the same thing as the ,,real" violet.
|
| Sunlight, however, is a wild mix of broadband EM emissions
| across basically the whole spectrum, as you'd expect from a
| glowing ball of plasma (halogen bulbs are actually similar in
| that regard, they need and do have a UV filter). About a third
| of the sun's emitted energy hits the earth's surface as near
| infrared light, and then there is UV etc.
|
| Near infrared light is very beneficial, the mitochondria in our
| cells can increase their energy output as a direct consequence
| of receiving photons in that frequency range. There are lots of
| studies that showed improvement of many health conditions
| following near infrared or red light therapy. I wouldn't be
| surprised if NIR light helped prevent myopia too.
| mattkrause wrote:
| As far as your visual system is concerned, "real" violet
| (e.g., from a tunable laser) and the "fake" RGB violet are
| pretty much the same--it's coded as the relative amounts of
| red/green or blue/yellow almost immediately after the cones.
| bdamm wrote:
| Not necessarily. There is a lot of analog in the eyes
| beyond the nerves, and we don't know all the effects of
| ambient light on the entire eye structure. Even if the
| neural impulses end up being similar (and I doubt that) the
| eye as a whole organ may not respond the same way. Maybe
| that heat energy triggers something in the cornea? We don't
| know.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| We also can't prove the absence the magical wardrobe with
| an entrance to Narnia from our universe, yet many people
| would say you are insane if you think it's true.
| mattkrause wrote:
| I don't disagree that UV and IR exposure may be
| important. Variations in UV exposure are thought to
| account for changing rates of myopia, for example. There
| may be non-image-forming receptors with different
| spectral sensitivities for circadian rhythms.
|
| However, the structure and function of circuits involved
| in color representations has been studied to death, and
| it overwhelmingly points to a tristimulus model where the
| activation of the S/M/L cones matters, rather than the
| complete power spectrum of the illuminant. The
| sensitivity of rods and cones has measured measured with
| exquisite sensitivity, both behaviorally and by directly
| recording their electrical activity. Many downstream
| neurons in visual cortex get their input from individual
| L/M cones (parvocellular pathway). The others (magno,
| konio) have a fairly simple mix of inputs from a simple,
| spatially organized combination of the cones. In some
| cases (especially within the retina), the individual
| fibers have been traced and mapped.
|
| There is a hell of a lot we don't know about the brain,
| but the very early representation of color isn't one of
| them. If you've got sources saying otherwise, I'd love to
| see them.
| mattkrause wrote:
| (This may come off a bit harsher than I meant. It's just
| that I'm surprised to hear someone doubt what I thought
| was a well-established principle with lots of data behind
| it. If you do have anything suggesting otherwise, I'd
| legitimately love to read it.
|
| If not, WebVision is an excellent resource with a long
| chapter about color.
| https://webvision.med.utah.edu/book/part-vii-color-
| vision/co...
|
| The Visual Neurosciences is a behemoth too, if you can
| find a copy.
| M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote:
| would it help to set your screens to a grayscale setting?
| 1e-9 wrote:
| It appears that the lack of violet light contributes to
| myopia[1]. There is abundant violet light outdoors.
|
| [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09388-7
| rafaele wrote:
| I wonder if they count staring at "n" screens for 1 hour as "n"
| hours.
| econcon wrote:
| Important thing is, people don't just stare at screen. Many of
| them achieve smth else too.
|
| For example, last week I've probably spent 50 hours with people
| front different parts of the word on screen.
|
| Helping them turn waste plastic into 3D printing filament:
|
| https://medium.com/endless-filament/make-your-filament-at-ho...
| acituan wrote:
| > last week I've probably spent 50 hours with people front
| different parts of the word on screen
|
| You've spent time with a _simulation_ of those people, their
| voices lossily compressed with a biased frequency response,
| their images projected through a non-eye lens on a 2D surface,
| their heads bigger and closer than you would have in real life,
| while rest of their bodies hidden, with hundreds of
| milliseconds delay between interactions. Don 't get me wrong,
| it is a very convincing and useful simulation for many
| purposes, but it is a simulation nonetheless.
|
| We might have overlooked this previously, but we will slowly be
| gaining an understanding of the effects of sole social
| interaction coming through videochat. I know for some, no
| matter how many zoom calls they do a day, it doesn't come close
| to creating the same relational satiety.
| malwrar wrote:
| Speaking personally, most of my good friendships growing up
| (and even now) were with people online and they feel
| perfectly fulfilling and real to me. I've been really
| surprised to hear people (who seem to have been forced into
| interacting with folks online because of covid) start popping
| up claiming that online interactions aren't real and are
| somehow invalid or inferior, as your post seems to imply. I
| would have thought the presumably largely computer geek HN
| crowd would be full of folks with similar experience.
| acituan wrote:
| > they feel perfectly fulfilling and real to me
|
| That is the whole point of a simulation. Hyper-palatable
| food, cocaine, porn etc. they also feel good and even
| hyper-real in our nervous systems in the short term, but
| that's not a good way to judge if they pose long term
| complications. Though, I'm not saying video chat is
| necessarily a hyperstimulus, we don't know yet.
|
| > claiming that online interactions aren't real and are
| somehow wrong
|
| I'm not saying it is wrong, and in the absence of real
| thing it is the rational thing to do. But thinking that it
| is the real thing is kidding ourselves and to the extent it
| replaces real life interactions, it could have long term
| harm. I know this is not an exact comparison, but we have
| already seen this with uni-directional audio-visual
| entertainment replacing real relationship time. We feel
| like our favorite youtubers, podcasters, netflix
| protagonists etc are our friends, or at least relationally
| worth investing time in (otherwise we wouldn't consume
| them). Same might go with the 50 people around the world we
| videochat.
| quacked wrote:
| If you've been reading Baudrillard, you might like the
| blog The Last Psychiatrist, which is a less-rigorous,
| more ironic take on a lot of similar ideas about
| hyperreality.
| acituan wrote:
| I read both! Thanks! It's a shame The Last Psychiatrist
| doesn't update anymore.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| Collecting info, react to info, organise info, communicate info
| etc.
|
| Otherwise might as well say we look for our life. It is not
| staring at. It is something else.
| JSavageOne wrote:
| Eye strain is a serious problem and actually becoming a
| bottleneck for my productivity. Flux and dark-mode everything are
| mandatory, and I recently bought blue-light filter glasses and
| can't stare at a computer screen without them anymore. I had been
| reading ebooks on my phone out of convenience, but I stopped due
| to the eye strain and will revert back to using the Kindle.
|
| If you spend the majority of your life staring at a screen, don't
| take your eyesight for granted. As you age, it will deteriorate,
| and it's really not fun, especially when your career/livelihood
| depends on you being in front of a screen.
| hrktb wrote:
| I think we are all in the same boat. For me switching from
| reading to hearing wherever the option makes sense helped a
| lot.
|
| Basic news coverage is fine in podcast form, audiobooks work
| fine for non fiction (going at 2x or 3x speed doesn't kill the
| atmosphere) and it makes a good excuse to exercise while
| listening.
| abstractbarista wrote:
| Good thing I started out super far-sighted. If anything, my
| vision has improved with time focusing on close screens. :P
| mattlondon wrote:
| 13 hours a day on average?
|
| That seems quite high to me.
|
| Assuming you sleep 8 hours, that only leaves 16 other hours for
| potential screen time of which 13 we are apparently looking at a
| screen. Lets assume another 30 minutes a day for getting washed &
| dressed, bio-breaks, brushing teeth, preparing food + drink etc
| (30 mins seems low, but I'm being generous), so 15.5 hours left.
|
| So of all of our waking hours, we spend 13/15.5 = 84% of every
| minute we are awake looking at a screen? 50 seconds of every 60
| seconds staring at a screen?
|
| Seems high to me.
| MrZander wrote:
| I can easily see myself hitting 12+ hours a day. 8 hours every
| day at work, then an hour of TV, then a few hours on my PC at
| home doing whatever. Plus, using my phone probably adds up to a
| decent little chunk.
|
| Weekends might drag the average down a bit though, spend much
| less time in front of a screen on Saturday/Sunday.
| karatestomp wrote:
| I bet I'm around 12-13 hours more days than not. Maybe higher.
| And my phone addiction/dependence is moderate compared to some
| so it probably comes in a distant 3rd after laptop (easily #1)
| and TV (all movies, shows, and video games combined)
|
| > Lets assume another 30 minutes a day for getting washed &
| dressed, bio-breaks, brushing teeth, preparing food + drink etc
| (30 mins seems low, but I'm being generous), so 15.5 hours
| left.
|
| Laptop on the dresser/counter playing Youtube. Phones are
| waterproof--read news or catch up on morning messages in the
| shower. Laptops that aren't giant bricks and have battery life
| good enough that you aren't constantly hunting for an outlet
| and towing your power supply around, plus (even more so)
| smartphones, have changed everything.
|
| Also depends on how they're counting screen time. Kinda like
| TV-watching stats. My parents leave their living room TV on
| probably 15+ hours a day. Does that mean they're "watching TV"
| if they're making lunch (good view of the TV from the kitchen)
| but half paying attention to the TV? Or I've come over and
| we're talking but the TV's on and you (or at least I) can't
| _entirely_ ignore it?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I agree. I track my screen time on my computer and mobile
| phone. I feel like I have too much screen time, but there's no
| way I could consistently hit 13 hours of screen time per day,
| unless maybe I put TVs around my house to use as background
| viewing while I do other work.
|
| Even if I spend 10 hours at the office, it's a challenge to get
| over 7 hours of screen time logged unless I actively avoid all
| discussions, meetings, and eat lunch at my desk.
| [deleted]
| qubex wrote:
| _The Onion_ was way ahead (as usual):
| https://www.theonion.com/report-90-of-waking-hours-spent-sta...
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| Just my personal experience: i definitely notice my eyesight
| getting worse and my eyes getting tired when I look at screens
| for a while. Worst are phones , then iPad , then laptop. TV
| causes me the least strain. I think it may have to do with the
| viewing distance or the background light.
|
| When I don't look at a screen for a few days while on vacation my
| eyesight gets much better.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| Pfft. Amateurs.
| varshithr wrote:
| If you are in IT, or any knowledge worker for that matter, do we
| even have a choice?
| M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote:
| e-ink monitors?
| mr_berna wrote:
| Does staring at two screens at the same time count double? At
| work as an iOS developer I look at two computer monitors, an iPad
| screen and a phone screen. When I watch TV at night I'll look at
| the TV and my phone. I'm sure I can get my count really high.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| Can we quantify the "net screen time" once we subtract away from
| activities that took up time but have since been
| replaced/optimized by automation?
|
| But leaving that aside, the 34 years figure is understating the
| true time spent. That figure is referring to 34 years of 24-hour
| days. If we subtract 8 hours a day for sleep, it is actually 52
| years of our waking hours.
| ipnon wrote:
| "If children get outside enough, it doesn't matter how much they
| study they do. They don't become myopic," said Ian Morgan,
| researcher at Australian National University.[0]
|
| "Researchers say kids and teens need to get sunlight during the
| critical years of their development while their eyeballs are
| still growing.
|
| "The mechanics of how sunlight protects their eyes are not
| clearly understood. One theory suggests that sunlight triggers
| the release of dopamine in the retina; another speculates that
| blue light from the sun protects from the condition.
|
| "The solution is simple. Have kids "spend more time outside, have
| less demands (from) the schools and relax a bit," said Seang Mei
| Saw, professor of epidemiology at the National University of
| Singapore."
|
| [0] https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/05/asia/myopia-east-
| asia/index.h...
|
| edit: quotation marks
| saalweachter wrote:
| I'm sure there is a correlation, maybe even a strong one, but I
| have quite a bit of anecdata to suggest it is not true in all
| cases.
|
| (I grew up on a farm, and spent a helluva lot of time outside,
| and needed glasses long before my family had a computer; my
| father would have spent even more time outside than I did, and
| likewise is pretty nearsighted.)
| chansiky wrote:
| What did you spend your time doing though? Did you read a
| lot? Did you draw? Did you spend a lot of time working on
| things within arms reach? Or did you spend your time staring
| off into the far yonder? Isn't there a case to be made that
| sunlight is more of a signal used to help the eyes learn to
| focus and that by staring at something a foot away with low
| signal strength the eyes never got the feedback necessary to
| shape itself to the environment that it needs to work in?
| saalweachter wrote:
| Climbing trees, chasing livestock, running through fields,
| catching frogs, rolling down hills, digging holes... ?
|
| I was _outside_. If what a small child running around on a
| farm for hours and hours every day, rain or shine, doesn 't
| count as "being outside more", we need to start using a
| different word to refer to that.
| ipnon wrote:
| The link references the rate of myopia in South Korea
| increasing from 18% in 1955 to 96% in 2011. This suggests 2
| things:
|
| 1. Myopia is not entirely genetic, because genes for myopia
| could not have spread to almost all Koreans from almost no
| Koreans in the span of 56 years.
|
| 2. Myopia is somewhat genetic, because myopia existed in a
| significant proportion of the pre-industrial population.
| javitury wrote:
| > Myopia is somewhat genetic
|
| That conclusion is can't be supported from the above fact
| alone.
|
| It could be a development disorder with a certain
| probability of occurrence given other non-genetic factors.
|
| Perhaps some pre-industrial people didn't get enough sun
| time, because they spent too time at home reading. Others
| had physical eye damage from work activities, etc.
| saalweachter wrote:
| Prefixing this with an acknowledgement that I totally
| believe there was a change in the prevalence of myopia due
| to changes in environmental conditions (amount of sunlight,
| artificial lighting, etc etc)...
|
| I _am_ curious whether 18% was the _diagnosed_ rate of
| myopia in South Korea in 1955 or the _actual_ rate of
| myopia in 1955.
|
| In 1955 South Korea was a poor country; now it is one of
| the wealthier countries (per capita) in the world. On the
| one hand, it is entirely believable to me that access to
| eye correction is radically greater than ~70 years ago, and
| there was a lot of undiagnosed vision problems in 1955. On
| the other hand, it's also entirely believable to me that
| literally every 20 year old (male) was given a vision test
| in 1955 in South Korea, because of the War. On the third
| hand, it's _also_ entirely believable to me that the vision
| test given was fairly easy to "pass", and that a many of
| the people who passed it would have a level of myopia that
| we would now prescribe glasses for, because hey, better
| vision is better.
| filoleg wrote:
| Had the inverse situation observed too. One of my friends has
| been writing code intensely since at least the age of 11,
| still spending tons of time in front of the screen. Never
| needed glasses in his entire life. And then there is me, who
| had very limited access to screen time as a kid, and I still
| ended up needing glasses around the age of 15 (despite none
| of my parents needing glasses, which goes to show that
| "genetic" doesn't necessarily mean something as simple as
| "your parents are this way, so you are bound to be the same
| way").
|
| I am not a doctor, but imo it is similar to a lot of other
| health concerns. Predominantly genetic, but you can still
| affect the outcome in slight ways and improve your chances a
| bit.
|
| Personal example: my grandfather who has been smoking at
| least a pack a day since the age of 9, and he is still doing
| way better in his 80s than majority of people his age.
| Working in the garden (even physically demanding stuff, like
| preparing the soil for potatoes every summer), fully mentally
| sound, etc. On another hand, you have plenty of young people
| who do everything right (no smoking, healthy diet, regular
| proper exercise, etc.) falling due to random health ailments.
| Which goes to show that while taking care of yourself is
| important and beneficial, the luck of hand you got can
| override it all in either direction at any moment.
| pram wrote:
| I agree. This is the first time I've heard of it. Literally
| everyone in my family wears glasses, including my deceased
| grandfather who lived into his 90s. He grew up in rural
| Mexico without electricity so it absolutely couldn't have
| been caused by TV or Computers
| karatestomp wrote:
| Meanwhile we put 5-6 year olds in kindergarten classrooms with
| UV-blocking windows all day, for about 9 months during the part
| of the year with the least sunlight available, and we've cut
| recess time down to almost nothing, and schools increasingly
| don't send kids outside if the weather's anything other than
| perfect. At my kids' school they don't even have indoor recess
| if they keep them in! They just watch a damn movie. WTF. Of
| course there was some stupid educational fad that led them to
| remove all the toys from lower-grade classrooms to make room
| for "learning centers" (I gather this has happened more or less
| state-wide), so I guess if the gym's not available they can't
| really do indoor recess anyway, not that it helps their
| eyesight either way. And this is a very highly-ranked school
| for our state.
|
| 1.5 hours of recess daily _minimum_ or bust for 3rd grade and
| under, I say, and I think that 's not quite enough, really.
| Screw this 30 minutes crap. Know how I can guarantee my kids
| have behavior problems at home? Coop them up inside all day.
| Know how I make a day run smoothly? Make sure they're outside
| running around at least a couple hours while the sun's up. Then
| consider that they're giving a bunch of them nearsightedness on
| top of _definitely_ creating behavioral and learning problems.
| It 's crazy.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I think it's all a side effect of the treadmill that society
| is putting everyone on. Between globalization and automation
| there are fewer good jobs that more people are competing for.
| Either you end up with what used to be a lot of money or way
| too little. Till you "made it" you are constantly at risk at
| slipping off the treadmill and into the "way too little"
| group. Especially in the US.
|
| May this be reality or not, it's the experienced reality for
| many. We feel so much pressure to give our kids a head start
| which results in this rat race starting earlier and harder. I
| think this is just collateral damage from that shit going
| wrong. I'm so glad I was a kid in the 80s when playing
| outside was still normal.
| karatestomp wrote:
| We let ours play outside plenty, and there are quite a few
| other kids out. Does seem to be neighborhood-dependent,
| though, all kinda have their own culture. Our current one's
| less free-range than the last, which had big ol' gangs of
| kids with large age-ranges roaming around, and was great.
|
| We _are_ fairly worried about 1) eventually having some
| kind of encounter with child protective services--which
| will likely end up fine, if it happens, but will also
| probably be really inconvenient and stressful--and 2)
| injuries that end up giving us yet another opportunity to
| play everyone 's favorite game, Medical Billing Roulette,
| especially now that they're riding bikes. Multiple kids,
| just a matter of time until one of them get a hospital trip
| out of a bad fall. Odds very low they'll all make it to 18
| without at least one broken bone.
|
| God damn do I wish we'd fix healthcare in the US. It's
| crazy how much background stress & anxiety that causes
| across just about all activities and choices. And that's
| _with_ insurance.
|
| [EDIT] although I'm pretty sure the "playing outside" thing
| tapers off around tween/teen ages in a way it didn't for
| us, when they all start living on social media. :-/
| jayd16 wrote:
| Nah, just Flux in more blue light during the day. /s
| dannyw wrote:
| Does anyone know if this also applies for people in their early
| 20s? Of course more sunlight and exercise never hurts, but I'd
| be more compelled if there's scientific evidence that it stops
| myopia progression.
| 1e-9 wrote:
| Yes[1].
|
| [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09388-7
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Anecdotally I had great vision (20/15) before starting
| college. Before I went to college the eye doctor said not to
| bother coming back until I got married. After 3 years of
| looking at a screen in the dark I needed glasses.
| ashleshbiradar wrote:
| "screen time" is too broad a term and is too often described as
| something bad. But we need to understand screens are more like
| papers, and what we consume off the paper is what matters.
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