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Comment by causality0 | Hacker News Reader

But is it the intensity and spectrum of the light or the fact that being outdoors means your eyes are looking at far more distant objects?

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It's purely the brightness. If you're in ambient bright light you don't develop myopia even if you're looking at nearby objects the whole time (e.g. reading books or a phone), if you're in a dim environment you still (are at statistically elevated risk to) develop it even if you're looking at distant objects. This is something they've had to keep doing bigger and bigger studies on because everyone who hears about it has the same kind of thoughts as you did.

OK. A dumb question. So I've been using dim screen brightness to my computer monitor every since I started using glasses. Should I be increasing screen brightness?

Cos I am very serious about having proper lighting on the room I work in. But always thought the screen should be dimmer than the room for some reason.

The short answer is I have no idea. As a matter of personal speculation, I doubt screen brightness makes much difference compared to the huge range that ambient light level can have (about four orders of magnitude IIRC). Most screens look bright at night even on their dimmest setting, and are too dim to read in sunlight even on their brightest setting.

Interesting. Mine has been the least possible brightness with which I can read. Just turned it up a notch to match the room brightness. Let me experiment with it for some days.

Thanks for taking the time to share your POV.

Wouldn't it be brighter settings = less stressom focusing muscles because smaller pupil = higher depth of field.

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