According to a Chinese study, online learning is linked to rapidly worsening nearsightedness. According to optometrists, the COVID-19 pandemic could have unintended consequences for children’s eye health. “As I looked at the phone, everything seemed blurry,” says Ambrose Tam, 8, whose vision was deteriorating.
“There are some things you need to do online,” his mother, Silky Tsang, says, “but we’d like to see him do more things outside.” “The more time they spend in front of the screen, the less time they have to do other things,” she explains. Children’s myopia is worsening as a result of the pandemic, according to optometrists. Online learning seems to have hastened the trend, as per the Ontario Association of Optometrists. Researchers in China compared annual eye screenings of 123,535 children aged six to thirteen from 2015 to 2020.
Some needed corrective lenses that were 1.4 to three times stronger than they had needed in the previous five years. According to Dr. Debbie Jones, a clinical professor at the University of Waterloo, myopia requiring high lense prescriptions in young children can lead to serious problems later in life.
News and picture:CBC
