Warning! Using Your Smartphone In The Dark Could Cause Temporary Blindness

Looking at your smartphone while lying in bed at night can damage vision or cause temporary blindness.

According to medical experts, this vision problem occurs when people look at the bright screens of their smartphones in a dark room.

In a report published in The New England Journal of Medicine, two women in the UK experienced recurring instances of “transient smartphone blindness” – a condition where they went temporarily blind in one eye for up to 15 minutes after looking at their smartphones in the dark.

The first patient 22-year old woman, complained that she experienced these episodes of temporary blindness in her right eye over several months while using her phone in bed. The second patient, aged 40, said she faced a similar issue intermittently over the past six months while checking the news on her smartphone before sunrise.

The study looked at two patients who attended the neuro-ophthalmology clinic at Moorfields Eye Hospital after experiencing recurring episodes of temporary vision loss. Mr Gordan Plant, consultant neurologist at Moorfields, reviewed both patients and asked them to record their symptoms. A detailed investigation revealed that symptoms occurred in one eye after several minutes of viewing a smartphone screen in the dark, while lying in bed.

Mr Plant explained that both patients were asked to try looking at their smartphones with both eyes, and then with each eye individually. The women reported that they did not experience the blindness when looking at their phones with both eyes, and when looking at the phone using one eye, the blindness happened in the eye that had been viewing the smartphone.

The study concludes that temporary blindness was ultimately harmless, and easily avoidable, if people stuck to looking at their smartphones with both eyes. 

Source: techtimes