Should I Buy Blue Light Blocking Glasses For My Kids?

Does staring at a screen hurt your eyes after a while? You’re not the only one. You might be suffering from digital eye strain. There is a sudden trend of parents buying expensive blue-light-blocking glasses. But do they really make a difference, and are they worth the expense? Swipe left to fin out,

The past few months have completely changed the way we work, learn and socialize, with everything moved onto digital platforms. This excess screen time is causing a lot of anxiety. people want to know if it’s going to damage their eyes and whether they need to do anything to protect their eyes.

What This Excess Screen Time Is Doing To Our Eyes

First, the good news – spending time in front of a screen has not been proven to cause any long term damage to our eyes.

What Excess Screen Time Does Cause Is Digital Eye Strain

Headaches
Eye Strain
Blurry Vision
Neck and Shoulder Pain

There are a number of effective ways to avoid this digital eye strain, which have been discussed separately.

What Is Digital Eye Strain?

Digital eye strain is the discomfort in and around your eyes you might experience from staring at screens for a long period of time. It’s caused by prolonged exposure to blue light-emitting devices like desktop computer monitors, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Do these children not get to live their lives just like the rest of us? Where have we, as parents, failed them in helping them understand this basic point?

But the questions on everyone’s mind right now are

Should I be using the blue light-blocking glasses to protect my children’s eyes?
Do these glasses work?
Are they worth getting?
Do they really help in reducing the eye strain experienced after prolonged screen time?
Does the blue light coming from screens cause any permanent damage to the eyes?

What Is Blue Light?

Blue light is there all around us, any source of visible light gives off blue light waves, whether it’s the sun, a light bulb or a touchscreen device. A certain amount of blue light is required by the body, as it keeps us alert, helps memory and elevates our mood. Also, the blue light helps regulate our sleep-wake cycle.

The recent concern has been over the blue light emitted by the screens of our digital devices, and whether we need to do anything to protect our eyes from it.

Research has shown that the amount and level of blue light emitted by digital screens is very low, and this does not pose any long term harm to the eyes, even after prolonged viewing.

Experiencing eye strain is a common phenomenon while working at a screen, and there are several different factors which contribute to eye strain, other than blue light. and there are a number of different ways to mitigate this eye strain.

What About The Blue Light Blocking Glasses?

There has been no proven benefit of wearing these glasses while working at a computer, to protect the eyes or to treat eye strain.

For someone who is still very concerned about the blue light coming from screens, you should know that there are a number of different apps available, which act as a blue light blocking filter, which will reduce the amount of blue light being given out by the screen.

According to me, this would be a better option as it treats the culprit at the source, doesn’t stop the natural blue light from entering the eyes, which is required for healthy functioning of the body and it will save you a few bucks too!

Installing an application that tints your screen to neutralize the blue light is another fast and effective option you have to instantly reduce exposure to blue light.