Is your smartphone making you blind? Yes, you read that right. Blind. Research has shown an extremely worrying trend. Smart phone use could be making you blind. Pretty much everyone we know owns a smart phone, in fact you may even be reading this article on a smart phone!
True, it is easier to use your phone instead of carrying a laptop everywhere. So what exactly are we talking about? TSB, also known as transient smartphone blindness, is a pretty new phenomenon but that doesn’t make it any less worrying.
So what is transient smart phone blindness?
TSB (Transient Smartphone Blindness) is a temporary monocular vision loss caused by smartphone usage while lying down in the dark. Why does it happen? One eye is forced to undergo dark adaptation while the other eye undergoes light adaptation. This is what causes the issue – here we have a light adaptation conflict between two retinae. TSB is a quite unknown phenomenon that is why some of people misdiagnose it as multiple sclerosis or ischemic vascular disease. Nowadays, everybody has a smart phone but hardly ever thinks about how those little clever devices work or how they affect us.
TSB is said to be a short term disease that should pass on its own accord. However, there are some serious long term implications such as age-related macular degeneration. Long lasting exposure to the blue light which is also caused by smartphone usage in bed and it is the reason for TSB development in the first place. Who can you ask for help? If you feel that something bad is happening to your eyes you should contact your doctor and remember to tell them about your smartphone usage. Another question to consider: Can my smart phone cause more diseases? Yes. You can also suffer from sleeping complications. When you use your phone just before falling asleep, the blue light that comes from your smartphone can keep you awake. Why? Because blue light reduces the amount of melatonin in our brains and disturbs your sleeping routine. Moreover, it causes suppression of REM sleep and that is why you will feel weak and tired all the time.
What if I put my smartphone in my pocket?
There are a few links between smartphones use and semen quality and motility. Smartphones usually have a higher temperature than human body and they receive information from many different applications and media in the form of electromagnetic frequency (EMF) radiation. It seems to be a very natural thing to keep our phone in our pockets. Nowadays living without a smartphone is pretty much unheard of so the risk, however little it may seem to you is totally real. Radiation is dangerous and damages DNA by increasing the amount of free radicals present in the testicles. What does it mean? That it can cause infertility, inviable sperm and at worst – testicular cancer.
What can you do about it? The most obvious thing to do would be to spend less time on your phone and more time in the real world….but in order to prevent the TSB, you should use your smart phone in well-lit room and in a position in which light may enter both eyes. Another piece of advice is to limit the time you spend on your phone – thus limiting the amount of blue light you are exposed to before you go to sleep. If you simply MUST use your phone you can also try to a special app designed to lower the emission of blue light and make the screen better for your eyes.
You can also exercise your eyes by looking straight ahead or at one point. When your eyes are focused on the smartphone or PC screen in the front of you, your eyes get tired very quickly. Try to also keep your phone in a bag, backpack, Avoid keeping your phone in your pocket. Change your habits when it comes to phone use – we are all guilty of using them too much ion one way or another, whether that be for work- or through scrolling on Facebook.
