Using your smartphone in bed could cause temporary blindness?

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Who would have thunk it and is it true? Using your smartphone in bed (or in dark conditions) could cause temporary blindness and “wreak havoc” on your vision. Doctors say two women went temporarily blind due to checking their smartphones constantly in the dark. In Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine doctors tell the story of two women aged 22 and 40 who experienced “transient smartphone blindness” over a period of months. The women had complained to doctors that they would lose their vision for up to 15 minutes yet tests showed nothing wrong with either woman. The women were sent to an eye specialist who was able to determine the cause of their vision loss.

“I simply asked them, ‘What exactly were you doing when this happened?'” recalled Dr. Gordon Plant of Moorfield’s Eye Hospital in London. He explained that both women typically looked at their smartphones with only one eye while resting on their side in bed in the dark – their other eye was covered by the pillow. “So you have one eye adapted to the light because it’s looking at the phone and the other eye is adapted to the dark,” he said. When they put their phone down, they couldn’t see with the phone eye. That’s because “it’s taking many minutes to catch up to the other eye that’s adapted to the dark,” Plant said.

Dr. Plant said the temporary blindness is harmless and if you want to use your smartphone in bed or in the dark, simply make sure both eyes are open. Studies about the effects of the screens we stare at all day have been done before and I think everyone can agree. It would probably be better for us all if we weren’t glued to those screens all day long. I know I’ve checked my smartphone in bed and I can certainly tell that it affects my vision when I’m staring at that phone for too long.

What do you think of “transient smartphone blindness?” Have you ever experienced this with your smartphone? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

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[button link=”http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_MED_SMARTPHONE_BLINDNESS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-06-22-17-26-38″ icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: AP[/button]

Last Updated on January 23, 2017.

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