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Comment by scotty79 | Hacker News Reader

With longer eyeball you don't tire muscles in your eye by looking at close objects so it's actually a gain not a loss.

I'm attributing my ability to look at screen for 8-16 hours per day, every day for last 15 years to this.

Of course progression of myopia is very bad but I think it can be almost completely attributed to wearing corrective lenses. If your eye elongated to adapt and you trash benefits of this elongation by wearing glasses without changing you lifestyle then you encourage further elongation.

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My experience seems somewhat consistent with this. I became moderately myopic after doing professional calligraphy for a few hours every day for a year or so (a few hundred thousand words total). But I decided not to get any glasses. Over the following years the myopia did not get worse, it improved a little.

Interesting, so do you wear glasses only when you need to be able to see distant things?

Before I formed my theory about myopia it progressed already to the point where I couldn't look at computer screen without glasses so not wearing them for most of the time is no longer an option for me.

Three years ago I bought myself new glasses but now I started noticing that they are no longer adequate when I have to look at distant objects. They are of course still perfect for watching computer screen. My plan is to buy myself new ones and use them only on occasions where I will need to look at distant things. For other needs I'll still use outdated ones.

I don't wear them in front of a screen because they reduce contrast an there are reflections - however clean they are. But I wear them to drive home.

As far as I am concerned I have evolved from something that needed to spot lions on the horizon to something that needs to spot trolls 0.5m away

That makes sense, but for me it would be more convenient if I could wear glasses while using the computer and not while doing other activity, which hopefully will be possible with the research that's going on.

Wait for old age! As you age your ability to focus closely gets worse (the eye muscles weaken) but your distance vision generally doesn't change much.

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