Children may have avoided COVID-19 during the pandemic shutdowns, but spending more time indoors with more digital screen time has been particularly hard on young eyes. Doctors are reporting that kids’ vision has been severely impacted with increased myopia (near-sightedness).
An international team from the U.S. and China discovered the rates of myopia, or near-sightedness, among young children between 6 and 13 years old is now three times higher during the pandemic than in the previous five years, especially among 6- and 8-year-olds. Scientists say half the population of the world may be myopic by 2050.
Startling research shows that spending less time outdoors, combined with an increased use of smartphones, tablets and computers results in declining vision among children.
One prepandemic report discovered the rate of teens needing glasses nearly doubled from 2012 to 2018. From 2015 through 2019, researchers diagnosed only 5.7% of 6-year-olds with myopia by 2019, but that rose to 21.5% in 2020. In addition, 26.2% of 7-year-olds and 37.2% of 8-year-olds in the new study also had poorer vision.
SOURCE: Study Finds June, 2021