Half the world to be short-sighted by 2050 | Hacker News Reader

Half the world to be short-sighted by 2050

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85 pointselorant106 comments

Afaik research shows this is the result of increasingly less time spent outdoors in the presence of intense light.

Going forward I think more intense indoor lighting is probably the solution, since the burden of study and education is only going to increase going forward.

Or, biomedical engineers make a major breakthrough in the performance of synthetic eyeballs, which I actually think is probably pretty likely by 2050. I'm totally ready for eagle-vision and being able to see more colors of light.

It would be an inconvenience to see radio waves, but boy would it be an interesting experience.

Similar: there are lots of stories of implanting magnets under the fingertips, to 'feel' magnetic fields.

I'd (unseriously) love to do that but it must wipe every credit card, usb key and hard drive you touch...

Faraday gloves, to mask your superpowers?

Wouldn't they get very hot in the presence of a strong, rapidly varying magnetic field?

Would they? And even if so -- what does it matter? How many incredibly strong rapidly varying magnetic fields do you come across in your daily life?

I actually have one of those (ring finger of my left hand), and I have had zero problems with magstripe cards and hard drives. Also, USB keys aren't really sensitive to magnets.

What happens if you need an MRI?

It quickly comes out and sticks to the MRI machine.

It might come out, but then go back in and out a few times before sticking. Survival would be path-dependent.

Worst case, you tell a doctor beforehand, and they remove it with a swipe or two of a scalpel. These things are usually put in by a professional body piercer with a scalpel and no anesthetic; it's not like they're deep in the flesh or anchored to anything.

Some FLASH technologies- the ones that use tunneling diodes - are sensitive to magnetic fields when operating.

Obviously to larger ones if they are used in USB key format, since the key can go through all kind of magnetic fields while in your desktop, pockets or handbag.

I think this mainly affects writing.

True story - I was working on an embedded project. I measured the temperature of the device using a pocket IR thermometer. I noted that it was a bit warm, so a small electric desk fan ( the kind with the square flat pancake induction motor ) was pointed at it - fairly closely.

I ran a FLASH write test and it stopped working altogether. We unplugged that fan to set up an oscilloscope and presto! it worked again.

Have you ever taken a hard drive apart? The have a big, strong, magnet very close to the platters.

It's unlikely the magnet in a finger would do anything to a hard drive.

USB keys have never been sensitive to magnets, and platter drives are heavily shielded to keep the magnet inside from screwing with stuff on the outside. Credit cards are vulnerable in theory, but I've accidentally carried a wad of Buckyball neodymium magnets in my pocket next to my wallet for several hours with no ill effects; briefly touching the card with a tiny finger magnet is unlikely to do much.

I have one. Ring finger of the left hand. It's mostly useful for rapidly-changing magnetic fields and strong static fields, so I can feel things like:

- the transformer in my laptop charger

- the electric motors in laptop fans and my hair clippers

- the closure magnets on my laptop

- the magnet in Arc mice that holds the dongle on

- the cyclotron in microwave ovens

Why'd you get it? Do you enjoy it? Is it interesting to you still? Are there any risks?

I got it because it seemed like it'd be an interesting experience, and it has been. It's still interesting, but not as much as it was, and I've been beginning to think about removing it; if it ever becomes a problem for any reason, I wouldn't hesitate to do so.

It's not a hugely risky thing. My biggest concern is/was the bioproofing on the magnet becoming damaged.

What do they say at airport security with magnetic metal under your fingertips?

I haven't been through airport security yet, haha.

And lots of horror stories about trying to get them back out when they shatter or start dissolving.

I'm not sure how inconvenient it would be. Cell towers would look like street light posts, people would be carrying around little flashlights in their pockets all the time.

Except you can close the blinds and keep the street lights out of your bedroom, well, to some extent at least. Though I suppose with synthetic eyes you'd be able to select which wavelengths you saw.

Except too many things would be transparent to that wavelength to use it as a nightlight. The light cell towers use would make floors and walls pretty close to transparent, for example.

Or maybe, you know, spend more time outdoors in the presence of intense light?

Have they defined intense light? Most of winter it might be hard to come by.

I believe it is ~10,000 lux, or direct sunlight.

Quite hard in northern countries. Canada, Norway, etc. have huge numbers of SAD-sufferers, because there just isn't enough light, even outdoors.

If that's the reason, it wouldn't be a new problem. I live in Minnesota: sure, days are shorter in winter, but it's not like it's 3 hours of daylight year round.

By European standards, Minnesota is rather south. The southmost parts are on the same level as Tuscany, Italy. The northmost parts of Minnesota are on the level of Paris. When you live in Nordics, days during winter or late autumn (without snow!) can feel really dark.

Seasonal Affective Disorder might be a myth: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/02/09/seasonal-a...

The crux of that article's argument is that they fail to find any correlation between latitude/light-exposure and depression. But Seasonal Affective Disorder—although frequently defined in terms of feeling "depressed"—is not defined as a kind of clinical depression: its symptoms do not heavily overlap with the clinical-depression symptoms they were looking for.

I Am Not A Neurologist, but my understanding from reading various journal articles is that the photosensitive ganglion cells in the retina (the ones that detect mostly blue light and are known to calibrate circadian rhythm) do what they do by stimulating dopamine release when their activation potential is reached.

Presuming that this production of dopamine due to direct-light stimulation is relied upon by developmental processes, then this can explain nearsightedness; without direct light, children produce too little dopamine, and so their eye muscles are left slightly more "slack", allowing the eye to grow in a deformed shape.

Presuming also that this conditional production of dopamine continues to be relied upon to hold to some average level even after development, then "SAD" would be, effectively, an environmentally-induced Attention-Deficit Disorder, and not any kind of "depression" at all. (Note that people with undiagnosed ADHD almost always first assume that what they have is depression. "My life is crappy and it makes me want to disengage from it" is very easy to confuse with "I lack the motivation to improve things, so I let them turn to crap instead.")

I would bet that if they looked for a correlation between those—light-exposure and ADHD symptoms—they'd find something much more interesting.

Which also has other benefits like getting more Vitamin D and lowering stress, anger, anxiety, depression, etc. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_bathing

>synthetic eyeballs, which I actually think is probably pretty likely by 2050:

How about 2019? http://www.phuturama.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Artificia... http://s120.photobucket.com/user/cinquevolte/media/Blade%20R...

If the synthetic eyeballs don't arrive, I wonder if by 2050 we'll have more options for correcting myopia. Right now we basically have 4 options, and they're all imperfect:

1. Suspend a lens in front of the eye (glasses). Drawbacks: condensation, not good in rain / water sports / contact sports, aesthetics

2. Stick a lens to the cornea (contacts). Drawbacks: risk of infection, not comfortable for everyone, hassle of daily removal / cleaning. Deprives the cornea of oxygen slightly

3. Remove some of the cornea with a laser (LASIK/PRK). Drawbacks: Can be inexact, not everyone gets perfect vision. Risk of side effects like haloes at night or chronic dry eyes. Risk of flap dislocation injuries in the future. The cornea may be permanently weakened.

4. Put a lens implant inside the eye. This one seems to be less common, but it's used for people with high myopia whose corneas are too thin for LASIK. Drawbacks: risky operation, risk of infection and complications.

(5.) There's also Ortho-K, where you wear a set of hard contact lenses at night which temporarily reshape your cornea, and give you temporarily improved vision. However it doesn't seem very popular these days, and I think it only works for low prescriptions.

I wonder if some new ways of attacking the problem will emerge. Like a semi-permanent contact lens glued to your eyeball?

There is this guy: https://youtube.com/watch?v=x5Efg42-Qn0

I've started practicing the blury print reading technique a week ago.

This has my bullshit detector ringing loud and clear, sorry.

No need to apologize, what specifically is triggering the detector?

As for myself, I'm spending a lot of time in front of a monitor, and I don't see a downside of trying out the technique.

When I was a kid I HATED being short-sighted, and I got into reading about the Bates method and other "natural vision improvement" techniques. I tried all the exercises, read all the books. I just eventually realised that these people are full of crap. At best they're deluded, at worst they are genuinely evil.

Why don't these people submit their techniques to a proper trial? Take a cohort of myopic people, have their prescriptions verified by an optometrist, then re-measure their vision at monthly intervals while you teach them your exercises. Why wouldn't you do this? If you could prove it you'd be made for life, you could travel the world teaching your technique. You'd be the person who cured myopia!

Yet, like most 'alternative medicine' advocates, they always find a way to dodge any kind of rigorous test.

No downside? Well maybe not, apart from the wasted time.

The author of the talk cites this study in support of his method of defocusing or 'print pushing' : http://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2126435 Small sample (N=28), but highly significant (p<0.0001) change in optical axial length.

It also seems he is not selling anything to cure myopia (books, glasses, courses..). The technique is just 'read from a position in which the letters are a bit blurry'.

Though, his site does look alternativish.

The other issue with lenses implants is that it's hard to give them adaptive focus; you both need a nice flexible material and attachment points for eye muscles. It's doable, just currently quite expensive and not quite at the performance levels of the original product.

I could be wrong, but I think the implants used to correct myopia are normally fixed-focus, and sit in front of the eye's natural lens rather then replacing it, so you don't lose the natural ability to focus close up (accommodation).

However you're right, there are now accommodating lens implants which could correct myopia and presbyopia simultaneously, or be used for people who've had their lens removed due to cataracts. It will be pretty exciting to see how they develop.

http://www.londoneyehospital.com/treatments-services/synchro...

You're correct about the ones that correct myopia, but there are eye problems that make the lens a total loss - most prominently, cataracts. In these cases the current approach is a lens replacement: the old lens is completely burned out by laser and a new one implanted in its place. It's actually a really cool laproscopic procedure - the lens is flexible and is inserted rolled up, unfurls on its own, and then has its position adjusted by the surgeon.

In my dad's case, because an accommodating implant was still impractical, he ended up with one eye permanently focused at infinity and one focused about about 4-5 feet. Which works surprisingly well, because the brain is really good at image processing, but still.

6. modify the shape of the eyeball so that the image is formed on the retina. You can already do this if you squeeze your eyes...

I've noticed an improvement in my vision if I pull outwards on the skin next to my eyes, which I think is the effect you're talking about. I don't know how you could make it permanent though.

you can also push. You could put a band around your eyeballs just like they do on the stomach, to help patient loose weight.

I've spent most of my life indoors, looking at objects very close to my eyes (books and computer screens), in low light conditions. Everybody kept telling me I would become nearsighted if I kept on doing it.

I'm now 55 years old, and I don't think I will ever be nearsighted. Actually, for the last 5 years I've been using reading glasses when I need to read books with small print as I can't focus anymore on objects which are very close to my eyes (that's presbyopia which comes from my age and is like the opposite of nearsightedness).

Presbyopia and myopia are not opposite; in fact, you can have both at once! My mother has to wear bifocals for precisely this reason.

I too have extreme myopia, but am old enough to be suffering from presbyopia also, and frustratingly have the bifocals to prove it. While presbyopia is not technically the opposite of myopia, it is functionally the opposite.

> Presbyopia (from Greek presbys (πρέσβυς) = old man + ops (ὤψ) = see like, sight > meaning literally trying to see as old men do[1]) is a condition associated with aging in which the eye exhibits a progressively diminished ability to focus on near objects.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyopia

Ironically, I spent most of my childhood outside and still developed nasty myopia.

We simply do not know what caused the current increase in myopia. Hypothesis range from diet changes to too much time indoor where the light is either not intense in general or lacks intense blue component (indoor lighting is too warm in spectrum).

So projecting into 2050 is just a wild game as any of the factors can change in 35 years.

How about so much more time spent looking at phones and computer screens (that is, things that are really close)?

Near work hypothesis cannot explain way too many things, so current thinking is that it does contribute much to myopia. Consider, for example, very rapid rise of myopia among Eskimo people after they started to adopt Western lifestyle. Before that they did a lot of close work like sewing or working with skin in bad light without causing myopia.

>they did a lot of close work like sewing or working with skin in bad light without causing myopia

Those involve close but shifting focus points. Not a static plane, like a screen.

Currently there are no data that indicate that starring into close screen contributes to myopia alone. In fact if that hypothesis of lack of blue in indoor lighting that presumably makes it much harder for eye to focus is true, then starring under indoor lighting to the screen could be even protective as the screen has more blue light than a typical indoor light.

In light of that (pun intended) one may need to be careful with twilight-like applications for smartphone that suppose to help with sleep by switching off blue pixels. It could be that while doing so they cause extra risk for myopia.

We have no data that muscles cannot hold a specific tension for a long time or that frequent monotonous strains can lead to malformation of the muscle? Sure, lack of blue light might also contribute, but the overall amount of blue in any artificial commodity lighting doesn't rival the sunlight.

It is not the amount of light but rather spectral changes that may be responsible for myopia, http://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2127682

Also, eyes constantly do micro-movements even when one stares into the screen or looks at green fields or when one sleeps. They are more similar to heart in that respect than other muscles.

Decreased selection pressure on passable eyesight due to the wide, continued availability of corrective lenses?

This year I've spent more time on a computer than one should. Previously I wasn't much on the computer and was out and about but this year I've spent probably about 14 hours a day on the computer (working at home). I can attest that in this year my eye sight has worsened almost 100% due to this. I hadn't noticed until about a month ago when I went on a long drive (normally didn't get out much b/c I worked from home) and I realized I was having a real difficult time driving because I couldn't really focus. It's like starring at a screen ask day with constant depth weakened my eyes ability to focus on different depths. The whole time I was driving, it felt like I was starring blankly even though I was actually trying to concentrate on certain things, like going from looking at the car in front of me to the traffic ahead. The whole time felt like I was just starring at a flat surface even though I wasn't.

There's a good chance that that's actually caused by something else, and the nearness to increased computer time is just a coincidence. You should see an eye doctor, if you haven't already.

Yeah, like the diet that accompanies 14 hour sessions sitting before a screen. But I wouldn't take advise from anyone saying 'that that' unless that that that's a stutter ;)

But the parent said "that that's", which is a valid thing to say.

I know it's as valid as 'off of' but that's American. I'm sure, it's valid, I'm just not sure it's valid to say that that's valid. Am I being redundant? I wasn't under the impression you'd notice.

> Yeah, like the diet that accompanies 14 hour sessions sitting before a screen.

I wasn't aware that sitting down for long periods required changes in diet. If you're trying to imply that hanniabu is fat and unhealthy, then at least point out something that makes sense, like lack of exercise.

> But I wouldn't take advise from anyone saying 'that that' unless that that that's a stutter ;)

First is a subordinating "that", second is a demonstrative pronoun "that". Perfectly valid English.

Myopia has a large genetic component, but genetics cannot explain the recent rapid increase in myopia, so there must be a pretty strong environmental component as well.

But we're only just beginning to understand what that environmental component might be. As others have mentioned, studies from Singapore have found that time spent outdoors matters more than close work. (And close work might not matter much at all).

Nobody is yet able to predict how myopic a specific person will be.

However, it might be sensible to start testing babies for the genes that influence myopia, so that we know to take extra care of the environmental factors for those children. Holding school classes outdoors, where the climate permits, would be a pretty low cost intervention. Actually, why not do that for everyone?

If we all started wearing VR goggles with the focal point at infinity, could this trend be reversed?

Anyway, it would be a good reason to use a virtual desktop at infinity instead of a real one at 1ft distance.

The DK1 had an effective focus distance of infinity, but i think the DK2 reduced it to about 1-2 meters.

The idea that focusing close causes myopia is called the "near work hypothesis" (by the Wikipedia page on myopia): "while an association is present it is unclear if it is causal."

It's probably bad to keep the eyes focused at one distance all the time, whether it is infinity or 12 inches.

Maybe VR goggles with 10000lux would help

China once mandated periodic eye relaxation exrcises in its classrooms. I have no idea whether this was scientifically studied tomhave worked at all

By 2050 everyone will have implantable lenses, so it won't matter.

Who's got the startup selling to this growing market?

hah

donald trump

If there are are still humans around by then. :)

Short sighted? Clicking on this article I thought it was going to be some half in jest article about not adopting long term sustainable policies. I've worn glasses for myopia since I was 9, have been at a number of ophthalmologist conferences, and have otherwise been somewhat more exposed to the field of optical medicine than average. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've seen the term short sighted used instead of near sighted for myopia.

The original article seems not to use either term but sticks with myopia as would be expected. I'm guessing this is a reporter mistranslation of the medical term?

The original paper is "Global Prevalence of Myopia and High Myopia and Temporal Trends from 2000 through 2050" and can be found at http://www.aaojournal.org/article/S0161-6420%2816%2900025-7/...

May I suggest not guessing, but googling it. It's a common term for myopia in British English.

We're on a forum because we don't want to RTFM or be given a LMGTFY, we want a social experience.

> I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've seen the term short sighted used instead of near sighted for myopia.

Counter-anecdote: I find 'short sighted' to be used significantly more than 'near sighted'. What country are you from?

US here. I don't think I've ever heard "short sighted" used in this manner. Near sighted is definitely the norm.

Its worse than that. In the US "short sighted" is generally used to mean someone who does not plan well for the future.

Both meanings apply in British English, it's just a matter of context. There aren't usually that many insulted patients raging out of the opticians in the UK.

Nevertheless some opticians are forced to don a face mask when breaking the news to certain patients, in cases where the "How dare you!" slap is likely to leave a mark.

"Short sighted" is the common term for myopia in other (non-US) English speaking countries. I would describe myself as short sighted if someone asked why I needed to wear glasses.

what is the point of this comment

america greatest country world number 1

In America, short-sighted means you think in the short term or don't think ahead. So a short-sighted person would accidentally double-book friday lunch, and is only focused on the current quarter's profits.

So "short sighted" is a metaphor in BrE but an idiom in AmE.

At least one dictionary I have at hand says:

myopic |mʌɪˈɒpɪk| adjective short-sighted. • lacking foresight or intellectual insight: the government still has a myopic attitude to public spending.

More succinct:

50% 20/50 by 2050

2050: 50% 20/50

The world is already short-sighted (e.g. Climate Change)

Ha!

Couldn't this just be the result of people living longer? I mean the trend likely won't be extrapolated out.

Hopefully evolution takes care of this eventually?!

What would be the proposed mechanism for evolution handling this? The typical mechanism is (lack of) child bearing, and being near-sighted with access to modern optics has zero impact on that.

Do realize when you say things like this you are exactly saying "I hope all these people die without having children".

That's how evolution "takes care of things".

Never thought about it like that. Suddenly my comment sounds really nasty.

I would be curious though as to how evolution works when a specific sense organ begins to weaken in every subsequent generation but however due to human beings ingenuity, the impact from the weakening may not be fatal.

By those with the weaken sense organ having fewer offspring than the population average. Selection is probability based that for any trait is effectively continuous.

Currently the only significant evolution in the human population is for the non use of birth control.

It's worth keeping in mind that evolution doesn't mean "improvement" - just change. There's no drive to make things objectively "better", which is why the human body is a giant pile of just barely good enough processes.

The fact that we can get around vision problems using technology is precisely what allows such vision problems to become widespread.

Poor eyesight has gone from being massively deleterious and thus exerting a strongly negative selective pressure, to being (usually) trivially correctable and thus having no bearing on natural selection at all (excluding sexual selection).

Once you remove selection from the equation, genetic drift gets free reign; suboptimal alleles will spread through the population.

Note, however, that in the case of myopia we may well be dealing with a non-heritable environmental effect.

If a trait doesn't prevent people from reproducing (whether by killing them, making them infertile, or making them unattractive to the opposite sex), and also doesn't make them more likely to reproduce successfully, then evolution has no effect on that trait whatsoever.

There are plenty of examples of characteristics that actually make individuals less likely to survive, but flourish because they also make the individual a more attractive breeding partner--the peacock's cumbersome tail, for example, which is used in mating displays.

Evolution "takes care" of things like this in the span ranging from millennia to hundreds of thousands of years.

And it might even decide to "take care" of the wrong thing, e.g. wipe out the human race in favor of the more resistant cockroach overloads.

Overlords (damn, I always make tons of typos on HN).

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