You will be relieved after reading this post and hopefully not be worried about your child’s eye sight.

When a child is growing, the eyeball also grows. Then it stops growing like any other organ. If the eye ball is bigger than average or smaller than average there will be sight problem. So what causes the eyeballs to grow slower or faster? Retinal Dopamine is found to control the growth of the eyeballs. And Retinal Dopamine is stimulated by sunlight.

But does too much TV, mobile phone or any other device screen cause eye sight issue in children or adults?

NOPE!

As per the Australian scientists, they studied hundreds of children and adults using TV, mobile phones and laptops versus those who played outside in the sun.

They found that it was the lack of sunlight which was causing eye sight problem (myopia) not the screen time. They found that dopamine production increases when children play in sunlight which in turn helps the eyesight. When children use too much screen time, it means that they are playing less in the sun. Hence there is lack of sunlight which causes the faster growth of eyeballs, leading to short sightedness.

The Australian Vision Convention in Queensland, Assoc. Prof. Read explained it was not ‘near work’ on computer and other screens causing myopia, but a lack of adequate outdoor light. While screens are contributing to children spending more time indoors than in previous years, the research shows they are not the direct cause of the increased incidence of myopia.

“Optometrists need to make their patients aware that less than 60 minutes’ exposure to light outdoors per day is a risk factor for myopia,” he said. “It looks like even for those with myopia already, increasing time outside is likely to reduce progression.”

So make you child play in the sunlight atleast for 1-2 hours daily or 4-6 hours in the weekends.

Source:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23434455

http://www.pnas.org/content/86/2/704.full.pdf

BBC Earth