back to article Late night smartphone use makes women go blind

Taking your smartphone to bed won’t just leave you tossing and turning, it can actually make you go temporarily blind, a team of London-based doctors have warned. A letter to the New England Journal of Medicine from a London-based team of researchers and medics details two cases of “transient monocular vision loss” the team …

  1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    This sounds very similar to what astronomers experience when they look at the moon. One eye is exposed to a sunlit moonscape, the other is in relative darkness. When you turn away from the eyepiece, the eye that was just exposed to moonlight seems practically blind. The effect is especially strong when using large telescopes at relatively low magnification. It wears off, of course.

    1. Lamb0
      Thumb Up

      So true. That's the reason I seldom observe with my 8" Newtonian when "Ol Sightblinder" is near full. A slender crescent is best to better detect tiny peaks and crisp craters.

      An OLED display on a tablet or phone I can adjust to (what most people might call "ludicrously") faint levels would be nice. Few people have any accurate conception of true dark adaptation.

      For deep sky observing, a monochromatic red mode too faint to perceive color without the necessity of red transparency layer(s) would be a boon for Sky Safari Pro. ;<)

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Men too

    Smartphone use in bed makes men go blind too. But that's more about pornhub mobile.

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: Men too

      You just have to put something on - like a sock. Or close your eyes.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Men too

        I used a sock, alas, it's a bit too crispy now...

    2. LaeMing
      Go

      Re: Men too

      But at least their prostate health will be tip-top.

  4. David Nash Silver badge
    FAIL

    Agreed - this is nonsense. It should have been caught and identified far earlier by the doctors.

    It's just differences in dark adaptation between the eyes, nothing more. Certainly not "blind".

  5. John H Woods Silver badge

    Deliberate differential dark adaption...

    This is why pirates wore eye-patches and soldiers are trained to close/cover one eye when flares are deployed. It is also why I cover one eye when switching off the yard lights in winter. Looks ridiculous, but less ridiculous than stumbling blindly around the car-park. Also a handy technique on nocturnal dog walks where you know you are going to trigger somebody's 50 billion watt searchlight when you walk past their house.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Deliberate differential dark adaption...

      That is why I often blink one eye at the young ladies, they can be so dazzling, your honour.

  6. chivo243 Silver badge

    Haar!

    This is why pirates wear a patch.... Mythbusters confirmed it! It has to be true!

    http://mentalfloss.com/article/52493/why-did-pirates-wear-eye-patches

    1. phuzz Silver badge
      Pirate

      Re: Haar!

      V-bomber pilots were issued with eye patches for a similar reason, although it was expected that the detonation of a nuke nearby would make them more than just temporarily blind, but in theory they'd have a good eye to try and land with.

      Although, as their missions would have involved bombing the Soviet Union at the same time as the US was nuking it with ICBMs, they'd probably see a lot of nuclear explosions in one day.

      1. wyatt

        Re: Haar!

        Interesting, as British bombers were only expected to have a one way journey with their airfield having been destroyed by the mutual destruction going the other way!

        1. Vinyl-Junkie

          Re: Haar!

          In this case I suspect land meant a good landing (one you can walk away from) as opposed to a great one (one where you can use the aircraft again afterward).* The V-Bombers were notoriously difficult to eject/bail out from so I suspect the preferred option would have been to put them down on something; even if it was wet!

          *Definition courtesy of my PPL instructor.

          1. phuzz Silver badge

            Re: Haar!

            As far as I know, most of the V force crews planned to head south for friendly territories in the middle east.

            1. x 7

              Re: Haar!

              theres a thread on pprune somewhere in which a V-force pilot said they were told to keep heading east, land somewhere in Mongolia and settle down with a nice nomadic local girl and not look back. There would have been nothing for them to come back to the UK for

        2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Re: Haar!

          Interesting, as British bombers were only expected to have a one way journey with their airfield having been destroyed by the mutual destruction going the other way!

          As I understand it, they planned their own missions - and they had a nice bunker to do it in, full of all the latest intel, maps of the Soviet Union etc. So all they were issued with was their targets.

          Once they'd done that, they got to use whatever fuel they had left to plan their escape. It was rather unlikely that there'd be anything to come home to - and other than maybe those bombing Leningrad, not many of them would have had the fuel anyway. I get the impression from the odd interview I've seen and read that none of them took this part of the mission planning terribly seriously. I guess if you were near a neutral border, you could try to cross, land and hope for the best. On the other hand, as the rather obvious agents of the nuclear destruction of large parts of civilisation - you might not be terribly popular.

  7. Natalie Gritpants

    Can't use both eyes

    When I lie on my side the fluffy pillow blocks the bottom eye. If I kept it open it would hurt.

  8. Chewi

    Just showed this to my wife

    I don't care if it's true or not, this is one of my pet hates! There I am trying to sleep and my senses can't help but notice the bright white glow nearby as well as the occasional taptaptap.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    After getting approval from the appropriate ethics committee...

    ...a pair of the authors subjected themselves..

    Did they really need permission from a ethics committee to do non-contagious tests on themselves?

    Dr. Salk would laugh at this.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Am I the only one to remember this being diagnosed when Johnny Carson was on the air?

  11. Mike Shepherd
    IT Angle

    "an understanding of retinal physiology...can avoid unnecessary anxiety..."

    The same happens if you read a book. Doctors train for years to deal with serious problems, not these trivialities. Avoiding "unnecessary anxiety and costly investigations" doesn't need a caring session, just a smack on the face and instruction to "get real".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "an understanding of retinal physiology...can avoid unnecessary anxiety..."

      No need for violence, unless you're looking to get struck off the register.

  12. Mike Green

    I wrote in to New Scientist on this subject quite a few years ago

    But I don't think I got an answer. I wondered if anyone new of any long term damage that might occur, and how much brighter screens would have to be to damage an eye. We know looking at the sun even for a few moments can permanently damage it, and a brother of a friend once went blind for 3 days after doing some welding without a mask (surprise) but I imagine it's hard to do qualitative studies because of the ethical problems involved in blinding people no matter how temporary.

  13. PhilipN Silver badge

    Contralateral

    What????!!!

    You mean "opposite"?

    Thank god all the best words are monos..... sorry ... have only one syllable

  14. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    I sometimes get this when I take pictures with a SLR. Wears off after a couple of minutes. *shrugs*

    Kinda reminds me of "In one day, our company both invented and found a cure for 'restless eye syndrome'. Kerching, blinky!"

  15. King Jack

    If I close both eyes I go blind. Where is my grant money? I discovered the cure.

  16. Tikimon

    There's an app for that...

    Probably several. I have one called Twilight that automatically dims and reddens the display at certain hours. You can set the amount of dimming and redshift and what times of course. It's designed to prevent sleep-impairment from bright light exposure, but I imagine it would help with the temporary blindness too.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Simple solution

    Put your damned cell phone down and go to sleep!

  18. John 104

    I discovered this as a child, reading in bed at night. No study needed. What a wast of time and resources..

  19. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Boffin

    Wait a minute...

    You're temporarily blind, in one eye, when you're in bed and *in the dark*.

    Why do you care?

  20. Anonymous C0ward
    Childcatcher

    Tell you what

    Late night smartphone use is making me blind too. And it's nothing to do with which side I lie on.

  21. x 7

    "it can actually make you go temporarily blind"

    yeah, we all know what those women were looking at, do it long enough and it'll make you go blind for a while. Makes the eyes look Japanese as well

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like