Does your kid spend too much time in front of a mobile or tablet? Are you also worried about the quality of life your kid will have? A survey done in Italy in 2017 showed that 85% of the parents worried that their kids would not get a decent standard of life.
Nowadays, the only hobby adults and kids have is to scroll through social media or watch movies and stuff. Being a parent in this digital media is all about worrying over your kid’s screen time. In this age, it is pretty normal for kids to have vision problems.
Computer Vision Syndrome
Does your child watch his favorite cartoons for hours before he dozes off with his tablet lying next to him? These days Computer Vision Syndrome is ubiquitous. It is a condition marked by eye strain due to uninterrupted periods of screen time that put consistent stress on eye muscles.
The eye muscles do not get the time to relax, so the person feels numb pain in their eyes. When your kid is focusing on the screen, he blinks his eyes far less than the regular times. This prolonged eye focus leads to computer vision syndrome.
Myopia
You must have noticed that many of your kid’s classmates wear eyeglasses. While in our times it wasn’t usual for kids to wear glasses. As far as I remember only aged people would use prescription spectacles. A recent study has revealed the astounding relationship between screen time and myopia.
Looking at smartphones for prolonged periods causes an increase in myopia risk by 30%. The main reason for this is that when you focus on near objects, your eyeballs are elongated, leading to abnormal bending of light in the eyes.
The typical shape of your eyes is round, but your eyeballs are oval like a grape when you are myopic. As a result, you cannot see distant objects; clearly, a condition called myopia. Kids have their eyeballs still developing, so this condition has more severe effects on them.
If your kid complains of eye strain, get him checked; there are possibilities that he has myopia.
Asthenopia
You must think that a ten years old kid cannot experience eye strain but it is not true. These days kids spend more time in front of the screen than many adults. Asthenopia is a formal term for the more commonly used term eye strain. The most common symptoms of eye strain are blurred vision, headaches, and dry eyes.
Adults can easily recognize the type of pain they have in their eyes and identify its causes. But kids cannot understand the cause, making it hard for the parents. Parents have to stay put to understand the problem.
We believe that kids cannot deal with illness the way adults do. As they are not so expressive, the responsibility of identifying the illness and its causes goes on parents' shoulders.
This is why it's important to take your child for an eye exam to prevent further problems.
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