The eye disease affecting 1.5 billion people globally and why Apple will make everyone care about it

Guessed it already? We are talking about Myopia (near-sightedness), which truly is a pandemic affecting people of all ages everywhere in the world.

Light from distant objects is focused in front of, instead of on the retina. This leads to distant objects appearing blurry while closer objects appearing normal. In severe myopia cases, even the risk of more serious diseases like macular dgeneration, retinal detachment and glaucoma may increase.

The length of the eyeball may be a reason for myopia (too long) but also the refractive strength of the lens (too strong) lead to myopia.

The myth of the computer screen-induced myopia

Next to genetic factors which have been proven to significantly increase the risk of developing myopia, there has been a credible tale of screen time as a main driver of the rapid increase in the prevalence of myopia. Since genetic changes happen too slowly to explain this rapid change — or the soaring rates in myopia that have since been documented all over the world there had be an environmental effect that has caused the generational difference.

There was one obvious culprit: Book time and later screen time. That idea is centuries old and by the 19th century, some ophthalmologists were recommending that pupils use headrests to prevent them from poring too closely over their books.

The modern rise in myopia mirrored a trend for children to spend more time glued to computer and smartphone screens. This is particularly the case in East Asian countries, where the high value placed on educational performance is driving children to spend longer in school and on their studies. Coincided nicely with statistics that beyond 95% of men living in Seoul, South Korea are affected by myopia.

Attractive though the idea was, it did not hold up. In the early 2000s, when researchers started to look at specific behaviours, such as books read per week or hours spent reading or using a computer, none seemed to be a major contributor to myopia risk. But another environmental factor did seem to be a statistically significant contributor to the prevelance and progression of myopia: Time outdoors or better said, the lack of A 2007 study which tracked more than 500 eight- and nine-year-olds in California who started out with healthy vision. After five years, one in five of the children had developed myopia, and the only environmental factor that was strongly associated with reduced risk of myopia was time spent outdoors. Several studies since have confirmed this finding. Don't misinterpret this though: Children staring at smartphone screens - especially up close - might not be a major contributor to myopia development, but it remains a factor.

Why soon more than 1B Apple-users will care about myopia

Apple has recently launched a feature called "Screen Distance". It is utilizing the hardware for Face ID to track how close the device's screen is to the your face. When you hold the screen too close to your face for an extended period, Screen Distance covers the screen with an alert, preventing you from continuing. When you move your device more than 12 inches away, you can resume using it.

During the set-up of the feature, your device will tell you about the strain which displays can have on your eyes and actually explicitly mentiones myopia.

What‘s next?

Stay tuned as we will look into the current of future treatment of Myopia in the next articles. To make sure you are not missing an update, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter!

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