More children battling vision problems thanks to rise in screen time during pandemic

As most children start their summer vacations, many parents are busy booking their back-to-school doctor’s checkups. Unfortunately, the last year has been anything but ordinary when it comes to health. Even if youngsters avoided COVID-19 while staying in quarantine and remote learning, a recent study reveals bad news for those upcoming visits to the eye doctor. Researchers say the combination of home confinement and too much time looking at digital screens appears to be severely impacting kids’ vision.

The international team from the United States and China finds the rates of myopia, or near-sightedness, among young children is three times higher during the pandemic than in the previous five years. Researchers examined over 123,000 children between six and 13 years-old during the global health emergency. Results reveal a “substantial” uptick in near-sighted cases among children between six and eight years-old.

“Myopia is a major health issue around the world. The World Health Organization estimates that half of the population of the world may be myopic by 2050,” researchers write in their report in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology.