Around half of the global population could need corrective lenses by 2050 — a health care burden that already costs Americans an estimated $7.2 billion annually. It’s because myopia, also known as nearsightedness, is at epidemic levels, according to Rochester Institute of Technology professor Andrew Herbert.
With May being Healthy Vision Month, now is a good time to explore why your eyesight might be changing. Although increased screen time plays a role, people are developing the condition for reasons other than their phones.
“Two recent studies featuring extensive surveys of children and their parents provide strong support for the idea that an important driver of the uptick in myopia is that people are spending more time focusing on objects immediately in front of our eyes,” Herbert said.
“The more time we spend focusing on something within arm’s length of our faces, dubbed ‘near work,’ the greater the odds of having myopia,” he continued.
A 2022 study out of Germany discovered that sunlight also plays a role: Children who didn’t spend significant time outdoors were more than four times more likely to develop myopia.
