Hacker News Reader

Comment by yarone | Hacker News Reader

Between the ages of 15 and 17 years old, I spent hours every night in a dark room in front of a (really bad) 14" CRT display.

I never had issues with my vision. Then I developed Myopia. I have always felt that it was related to my late night computing.

View on HN

I can add my anecdotal experience as well. On Windows XP, the default refresh rate for CRT monitors was set low, to avoid burning out those that couldn't handle more.

It took me two years to figure this out. My screen was a fuzzy mess for those two years. Had progressing myopia during that period.

Myopia stabilized after that.

Edit: Found the support doc for this. Ah, 60hz default.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/311403

Between the ages of 13 and 27 years old I spent hours every night in a dark room in front of a monitor. I started with really bad 14" CRTs and these days I have shiny LCDs.

I've been wearing glasses since I was 7 years old and my prescription hasn't changed since I was about 16. But my doctor said that it was going to keep progressing while I'm still developing then stop until I start hitting age problems.

Your timing seems to correlate well with growth spurts that people have in high school. I didn't have mine, still short. So your myopia might be less because of the bad screen and more because a lot of people first develop bad eyes when they go through puberty.

ymmv

I would agree that puberty has a big effect on eyesight. I had terrible vision as a child, glasses from about 6 years old on. At 12, about the time my growth spurt kicked in and I shot from 5'5" to 6', I suddenly realized I could see fine without my glasses (which was fantastic, since that was when I started playing basketball a lot, and gah, RecSpecs...) I've had roughly 20/20 vision since.

Did you also not spend time outside? The article says that time spent at low light reading or using a computer doesn't affect myopia if you also spend time outside in high light conditions.

I was outside for hours every day. Played soccer, ran track, ran x-country.

Same thing, around the same age. A somewhat famous ophthalmologist who did a decent amount of research insisted to my mother, at the time, that there was no statistical correlation between CRT use and myopia. Interesting to see the consensus move since then...

CRT use != low light conditions. I bet the studies were focused on eye strain in work environments.

How has the consensus moved? The article seems to claim no correlation to "near field" work has been found?

I was never much of an outdoors-type kid. I spent much of my early childhood basking in the warm, green glow of an Apple ][ monochrome display (had to be torn away from it periodically and forced to go outside), and so I had to start wearing glasses in the 2nd grade. Today, my eyeglass prescription is -8.50D. Though it's at least been stable for the last 10 years or so.

My mother is also a programmer and has horrible eyesight as well, but she grew up on a farm and had never even seen a computer prior to college, so maybe my myopia is mostly inherited.

I was using a good CRT the Apple eMac. At one point it stopped showing colors properly, red of RGB came and went. Started using another CFL monitor more often.

I was 18 so around that time I started college and used iMacs and those gray standalone screens that matched G4 towers. All the lighting in computer labs came from fluorescent lights. And all those screens were CFL backlit.

This is when I started having pain in my eyes and became nearsighted. Only needed 0.5 correction at first, progressed to 3.5 since then.

Another data point: Same here, same story, but with a good display. :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com