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Children / Technology / Teens/Tweens

How to protect your children’s eyesight in the digital age

How to protect your children’s eyesight in the digital age

Technology has offered many benefits to education, but it’s not without its risks – foremost among these is the harmful blue light emitted by digital screens, which can actually disrupt sleep patterns and cause significant vision problems over time. 

How Is Blue Light A Threat?

Blue light is at the high end of the colors that humans can perceive – and this increase in energy means that it can go further into the eye and cause greater stimulation in the retina. That’s good in the mornings – humans are biologically programmed to be awake and active when they’re seeing blue light, and just looking at the sun can help someone quickly wake up.

As you might imagine, though, that’s a problem when we’re trying to go to sleep. The greatest natural source of blue light – the sun – automatically vanishes over the horizon every day. However, continued exposure to blue light through digital devices makes our bodies believe that they should still be awake and active – even as the rest of our body is trying to relax and rest.

Teens are already inclined to stay up late, and blue light in the hours before bed just makes it worse. Fortunately, there are two simple and effective things you can do to mitigate the effect of this light and help protect your teen’s sight.

Practice The 20-20-20 Rule

In the last few years, this rule has gained increasing popularity as a way of helping to reduce the eye strain caused by using digital devices. Essentially, the rule is that every 20 minutes while a child is using a digital device (smartphone, computer, tablet, etc.), they should look at an object that’s at least 20 feet away for a minimum of 20 seconds.

When this happens, the change in focus tells the eye to ‘reset’ itself and make real changes in how it focuses. To make this easier on your teen, consider placing the computer next to a window that offers a good view of the outdoors – closed-in rooms are best avoided. 

Use Filtering Glasses

Does your child already wear glasses? Then you’re in luck, because scientists have developed tinted lens that can block out the harmful blue light that digital screens emit – and may actively help your child get to sleep. Completely orange glasses have been the go-to choice for several years, but recent developments have helped hide the tint and make it much easier for the glasses to be worn all-day.

 If your child spend a significant amount of time on any digital devices – even at school – it may be worth providing them with filtering glasses that can reduce or eliminate the glare of blue light. If they don’t need glasses permanently, you can get them a pair without focused lens – the idea of being able to sleep better is all the motivation many teens will need to wear them, though it helps if the glasses are at least moderately stylish.

You may also want to consider wearing them yourself and leading by example – adults can also suffer from being exposed to too much blue light, and making it a family habit to put on the filtering glasses (say, right after dinner) can help make sure they’re actually worn.

Amy Williams is a freelance journalist and mother of two. As a parent, she enjoys spreading the word on positive parenting techniques in the digital age and raising awareness on issues like cyberbullying and online safety.

Mile High Mamas
Author: Mile High Mamas

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1 Comment

  1. It’s always a good idea to put preventative measures in place to ensure your kids have the safest experience possible. Steps that you take early on, will have a significant impact on their quality of life later on.

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