“i think we all as children were told, ‘don’t spend a lot of time reading you’re going to hurt your eyes,’ that kind of old wives tale,” says yvonne buys, the president of the canadian opthalmological society (cos). “there is no detrimental effect to using your eyes, so its not going to cause any long lasting damage to your eyes, using them excessively be it reading a book or using it on screens like watching television.”
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a joint policy statement from the cos and the canadian association of optometrists (cao), written pre-pandemic, reads, “the prevalence of electronic screen-related ocular symptoms is estimated as high as 50 to 90 per cent in adult electronic screen users.” due to a lack of research, the number for children is unknown.
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while dry eyes might not be the biggest threat, vision health shouldn’t be ignored. may is vision health month in canada. about 5.59 million, or one in seven canadians have eye conditions that put them at significant risk of losing their vision, while 1.5 million have an eye condition that impacts their day-to-day quality of life.
fighting blindness canada (fbc), the largest charitable fund of vision research in the country is teaming up with the eye health business bausch and lomb canada. for the entire month, any time someone uses the hashtag # whyeyecare on social media platforms, bausch and lomb will donate a dollar to fbc.