Screens are the new sugar: Is digital addiction fueling a myopia epidemic?

Time of India

23-05-2025

Screen time includes computers, televisions, video games, and other mobile digital devices (e.g., smartphones, laptops, and tablets. Screen time exposure has become an important part of children and adolescents in day-to-day lives.
Tired of too many ads? go ad free now
Screens are gaining popularity among children, this has been on the rise since the COVID-19 pandemic.
In earlier days, television used to be the only screen available, but now trends have changed children are exposed to mobile phone screens from the first year of age.
Through games, books, there are some benefits like improvement in motor skills, language overall cognitive engagement becomes better. However, there are numerous negative health benefits of excessive screen time, like early onset of hypertension, insulin resistance, obesity, acquired autism, sleep disorders, and also myopia progression.
The increase in screen exposure at an early age and also the increase in screen time every day have led to an increase in myopia. According to a study, an average increment of one hour of screen time, there is an increased risk of myopia by 21 percent. According to future predictions by 2050 nearly half of the world will be myopic. With the increase in myopia even the global burden of myopia-associated disorders like degenerations, maculopathy, glaucoma, and retinal detachments will also increase.
The odds of myopia progression are higher when children have access to combined television or smart screen use.
Myopia is influenced by multiple risk factors, including a combination of genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors, screen time being one of the latter, and potentially interacting with others, which can pose a significant negative impact on vision. An increase in screen time basically means doing more of near-vision work and spending more time indoors.
Tired of too many ads? go ad free now
This means there is less exposure to natural light and more dependency on artificial lighting, which is also one of the major contributing factors in the case of myopia progression.
It has been seen that keeping a limit on screen time to one hour a day is generally safer for the eyes.
There has to be no exposure to screens in the first two years of life. The screen time limit for children of 3-5 years of age should not be more than one hour
The schools should come out with a policy of banning the use of mobile phones and also limit the screen time to 30 minutes a day, a more original way of teaching should be advocated.
There should be compulsory natural light exposure for all children.
The parents should take necessary measures in improving the lighting, sitting table ergonomics at home so that the working distance and posture, along with good lighting, is maintained for every child. have regular eye screening done with a paediatric ophthalmologist once a year or twice a year depending upon the pattern of refractive error change.
Dr. Sakshi Lalwani, MBBS, MS, DNB (Ophthalmology), FLVP Paediatric, Dr Agarwals Eye Hospital with CEDS, Bandra