Impact of Electronic Devices on the Development of Vision in Early Childhood
In a recent article on The Conversation website, Langis Michaud, professor in the School of Optometry at the Université de Montréal, talks about the critical harmful impacts of use of electronic devices such as tablets and phones for children during the first years of life.
In the article, Professor Michaud speaks to the impact of electronics use in infants and young children both on their visual development and in their cognitive and social development.
Noting that more than a third of the brain’s neurons are dedicated to vision, and visual acuity develops gradually over the first eight years of life, he states that “electronic devices are not, in themselves, a source of visual problems. Rather, the inappropriate use of these devices can interfere with the natural development of the eye, as well as reading and learning skills”.
He clarifies that the eye is designed to look at a near distance that is about equal to the length of the forearm (about 30 cm for a child and 40 cm for an adult), however, tablets and phones are held on average 20-30 cm from the eye. Studies have shown that this distance becomes shorter with prolonged exposure, doubling the effort required to maintain a clear image. This leads to excessive eye fatigue, and to alternating blurring and re-focusing.
The second factor Professor Michad reviews is the demand of electronic games or videos, for a constant attention span, without breaks. “When a child draws in a notebook or reads a paper book, he or she will instinctively stop at some point, look elsewhere, far away, and become interested in something else around them. These pauses and breaks are beneficial for the visual system to recover from its effort. Focusing on targets at a distance is also beneficial to the child’s visual development. With electronic tablets, it is not uncommon to see children doing sessions of more than two to three hours continuously, without looking up from the screen.”
He stresses that, because “the structural elements of the sclera (the deep layer of the eye), which give the eye rigidity and determine its size, develop between zero and two years of age and then stabilize”, use of electronic tools at this age can negatively influence the development of visual defects and pathology in later life”.
Children’s eyes are not able to filter blue light rays in the way that adult’s eyes can do, which can be a cause of nearsightedness and disrupt melatonin production, disrupting children’s sleep patterns. He notes that sleep loss in itself can be a causal factor in developing myopia (nearsightedness).
Professor Michaud’s recommendation for electronics use in children are:
Avoid all exposure to electronic devices between the ages of zero and two. (He notes that one occasional exception might be video communications for a few minutes, under parental supervision, with a grandparent who does not live locally.)
From two years on, up to an hour per day can be considered, always accompanied by a parent or educator, to consult sites with an educational value.
By six to eight years, once the visual system is mature, exposure can be gradually increase to a maximum of 2-3 hours per day, with 10-minute breaks every hour, avoiding use during meals, family activities, and at least one hour before sleep.
To optimize successful visual development in children, he recommends 1-2 hours per day of exposure to outdoor light (playing, walking, outdoor activities) to stimulate the production of dopamine, a chemical mediator essential to regulating the growth of the eye, instrumental in preventing the development of myopia.
Finally, he recommends a first examination by an optometrist at six months of age to check for normal optics in the eye and that there are no congenital defects, and at three years of age to evaluate eye coordination. If eye development is found to be normal at that point, then annual examinations should start from five years of age.