Are Electronic Devices Hurting Your Eyes?

This sponsored post is a part of the campaign “Protecting America’s Eyes” by Reticare in order to inform U.S. citizens about the importance of eye protection from device screens. Any opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.

How much time do you spend on your electronic devices? I’ll bet it’s a lot more than you realize. If you are anything like the typical American, you are spending 5 or more hours a day on them. Seriously – the Vision Council did a Digital Eye Strain study in 2016 and reported that over 60% of Americans spent five or more hours a day on their devices. And even more shocking – over 70% are using two or more devices at one time.

All of this device use has consequences. 65% of Americans report experiencing digital eye-strain.  Digital eye-strain can present in a number of ways like neck/shoulder/back pain, eye strain, headache, blurred vision, and dry eyes. Most electronic devices people are using emit high energy light. While there has been a lot of recent coverage of how this high energy light can mess with sleep patterns, most people don’t realize it can also lead to computer vision syndrome, and a decrease in macular thickness, which can regress to macular degeneration. Retina damage is the most dangerous risk.  Retina damage can onset Glaucoma, Cataracts and Macular Degeneration which can lead to blindness.  Once the retina cells die from being overexposed to high energy light, they don’t recover.

Children are at an increased risk of suffering from these types of ailments as their eyes are not completely developed until the age of 25. (Betcha didn’t know that, did you??)  The natural lense protection your eye has on its own doesn’t fully kick in until 25, so it needs a little help in keeping the eyes safe until then.

What is a parent to do? Banning electronic devices until kids are all grown up isn’t going to work. Heck, they are even required in many elementary schools. But there is another option – after 14 years of research, has a solution. You can add a layer of protection for eyes by applying a screen protector that absorbs some of the high energy light.

Reticare’s eye protector screens naturally absorb high-energy light and provide different levels of protection based on the users age and amount of time spent in front of the screen. When we learned about the risks associated with spending so much time in front of our devices, we added Reticare Eye Protectors to our most used devices. We chose to put them on a phone and a tablet to test them out.

My main concerns were that they would be difficult to apply myself and would distort the way my devices look. Applying was ridiculously easy! The package even has a holder to keep your device from moving while you are applying the Reticare screen. And while the screen appeared a little yellowish in the package, once it was applied, I quickly forgot it was even there. Got to love that invisible layer of protection!

Learn more about Reticare and connect with them to ask any questions you might have.