No, the blue light of the smartphone is not making us blind

No, the blue light of the smartphone is not making us blind

The blue light from the electronic screens does not blind us. A recently published study has been creating both public concern and alarmist headlines in news sources around the world. However, experts caution that these reports are drawing unfounded conclusions about the potential effects of blue light on the eyes.
This laboratory research is no reason to stop using screens.
The research comes from the University of Toledo and was published in Scientific Reports. The researchers were trying to find out what happens when a specific chemical, the retinal, is exposed to blue light. The retinal is in the eye. And blue light enters the eye both naturally, in sunlight, and from electronic screens. However, the study results cannot be converted into recommendations for real people in the real world.

Dr. Janet R. Sparrow, professor at the Anthony Donn Chair of Ophthalmic Sciences and professor of pathology and cell biology at Columbia University in New York, makes several caveats about the caution to be taken with the results of this study:
.Experiments do not imitate what happens in the eyes.
.The cells used in the study are not derived from the cells of the retina.
.The cells in the study were not exposed to light the way cells in the eye are naturally exposed to light.
.The part of the cells affected by the retinal in the experiments (the cell membrane) does not come into contact with the retinal in the eye of living beings.
.The retinal is toxic to some cells, whether or not it is exposed to blue light. Living retinal cells have proteins that can protect them from these possible toxic effects.
.Other cells that were also exposed to the retinal and blue light by the researchers would not be exposed to blue light in the human body. 
.Blue light only reaches the skin and eyes. It cannot have any effect on parts that are deeper within the body.
In other words, the researchers took cells that did not come from the eye, put them all together in the retinal in a way that does not occur in the human body, and exposed these cells to light in a way that does not occur in nature.

Real concerns about screen use and eye health

If you have questions or concerns about the health of your eyes, you should speak to your ophthalmologist, your doctor can make recommendations that will be correct for you and for your lifestyle.
There is evidence that blue light can interfere with human circadian rhythms, making it difficult to fall asleep. For some people, it may also be a good idea to limit the use of screens before going to bed. Another measure could be to filter the blue light on the screen before going to bed.
Spending too much time looking at a screen can make flickering less frequent than when we focus on more distant objects. This can make the eyes feel dry, gritty, tired, or strained. A simple solution is to observe an object 20 feet away for 20 seconds every 20 minutes. Ophthalmologists call this exercise the '20 -20-20 'rule.