Transient Smartphone Blindness

[Son_of_Perdition]

In Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, doctors detailed the cases of the two women, ages 22 and 40, who experienced "transient smartphone blindness" for months.

The women complained of recurring episodes of temporary vision loss for up to 15 minutes. They were subjected to variety of medical exams, MRI scans and heart tests. Yet doctors couldn't find anything wrong with them to explain the problem. But minutes after walking into an eye specialist's office, the mystery was solved.

"I simply asked them, 'What exactly were you doing when this happened?'" recalled Dr. Gordon Plant of Moorfield's Eye Hospital in London.

He explained that both women typically looked at their smart phones with only one eye while resting on their side in bed in the dark — their other eye was covered by the pillow.

"So you have one eye adapted to the light because it's looking at the phone and the other eye is adapted to the dark," he said.

When they put their phone down, they couldn't see with the phone eye. That's because "it's taking many minutes to catch up to the other eye that's adapted to the dark," Plant said.

Father's day my g-daughter posted a FB pic of her son, sitting on his stepfather's lap. In the pic the s-father was checking his smart phone. Couldn't even put it down for a photo. She seen nothing wrong with that, but my wife was miffed at the display. Also, our g-grandson is six, has a tablet his g-father gave him for Xmas that he can't use no more than 2 hours a day, kudos to his parents except when you take into account both of them are glued to their smart phones 16 hours a day. Carrying on a conversation is daunting & something I take no joy in. I'd just as soon have them drop the kids off & return hours later to pick them up. My youngest daughter is also addicted to her smart phone. I stop talking when she checks hers, until she looks up with a quizzed look as if to ask, 'Is something wrong?'.

 

[tnthomas]

Yes, smartphones are a curse, and a blight on the human race. Although, I would like to get a straight Linux phone, my Google Android is a bit annoying, with it's invasive Google branded apps that want to "share" you data all across Google properties.

 

[Guitarist]

I didn't know there was a name for it but that has happened to me. Freaked me out the first couple of times, now, not so much. I just try not to do it 'cause I need both my eyes working!

 

[Don M.]

Every time I see someone walking around glued to their cell phone, I think they need to "get a life". There has been more than one doctor/scientist speculating that the people who are spending hours per day with these devices in close proximity to their brains may be inducing some permanent, long term damage to themselves, by emitting a constant stream of radio waves into their brains. Time will tell.