Now granted I spent most of my time growing up playing on the computer and reading - but I was wearing my glasses the whole time so year by year it got worse. Eye doctors say “oh youre just growing into your eyes” when they know that’s not the case. Look at how many children have (pseudo)-myopia due to growing up with smartphones and tablets 24/7. It’s not hard to figure out.
Now I don’t think there’s an exact science to curing myopia but at the very least everyone should practice the 20/20/20 rule and wear their distance glasses as little as possible. Just those 2 things can save you from developing pseudomyopia.
AFAIU it's relatively well established that regular sunlight exposure is critical to proper eye development. But judging by the numbers you mentioned this revelation (at least the scientific evidence for it) would have post-dated your childhood years.
In fact, in a famous case they had to abort the study early due to ethical grounds. The vision for the (uncorrected) control group was degenerating so much faster that they felt compelled to give everyone the correct prescription.