CAN TODDLERS GET COMPUTER VISION SYNDROME?

Your kids at home just had their pre-school classes online finished and are ready to turn off the laptop, or so you thought? They start fiddling around with the keyboard just to go to the most reliable video-sharing website. They spend another extra hour with their eyes fixated on the screen.

If you ever spot them rubbing their eyes occasionally or complaining about an itch that’s always there. You might realize that they are developing some symptoms of eye strain. Constant viewing of digital screens often makes their eyes work a lot harder causing several effects, this is what we call computer vision syndrome.

Can Children be affected by the syndrome?

Studies from The Vision Council revealed that about 25% of children spend more than 3 hours a day using digital devices. Children can actually end up having computer vision syndrome (CVS) if they are exposed to computers or other digital devices for long periods of time. The longer they use those devices the more it can worsen in the long term.

The reason for this is that digital devices that display things on screen are made out of pixels that the eyes are not used to. This can in return cause the child to feel uncomfortable and your child might also have a tendency to put their faces close to the screens, due to the fact that they don’t have the power to focus on those pixelated images for a long period of time.

The Effects of CVS

Most of the effects of CVS are related to blue-light, a term which you’re probably familiar with if you’ve seen advertisements popping around about it for eyewear products such as ours

• Eye strain: This can cause fatigue, dry eyes, lack of lighting, or sitting in front of a computer can cause eye strain. Symptoms of eye strain include eye pain, inflammation, and being out of focus.

• Retina damage: This can cause damage to the retina cells within your child’s eyes and terrible vision problems (you can read more about it here.)

• Seizures: Yes, blue light can cause epilepsy if your child is photosensitive. Flashing lights and screen brightness can trigger children to have these seizures.

• Headaches: These are very common, as mentioned earlier your eyes have to constantly work on identifying many objects all around you. Children do not have a strong focus on things which can result in them having headaches as their brain is figuring out what’s going on in their screens (GIFS, animations, video games, etc etc etc).

Why it’s important to have blue light glasses 

We can’t stress how much it is needed for your children to have anti blue light glasses, especially in a day and age where people are required to face a screen for half a day just to do their work or studies. Our children should have their little eyes protected so that when they grow older they would not have to worry about their health. Always remember to limit their screen time and apply a 20-20-20 rule for them.