This gave me so much to think about! My 11 year old is notorious for reading late into the night. She uses a red light nightlight for this purpose, but I’m guessing it’s the dimness of the room that’s the issue, not the light wavelength?
This is a really good question. A REALLY good question.
Low-level red light therapy is a promising treatment for slowing myopia progression, and that's typically a very specific wavelength of red light delivered into the eye for 3 minutes twice a day (such as in this paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016164202400318X ).
My guess is that reading under red light in the evening is probably better than reading under bright white light in the evening, but both are worse than reading in daylight in the middle of the day. I think there may be a interactions between a circadian effect, a mechanical effect (holding a set focal distance for a long time), and a light wavelength effect going on (and maybe more, bodies are very complex!).
Spending time outside at night doesn't seem nearly as bad as reading at night for the eyes - and I'm guessing that's because you don't have the dimness/close focus interaction going on.
Maybe it's something to discuss with her and get her perspectives on!
very interesting. How do you think this plays into the debate about when is the best age to teach children to read. Or, maybe it doesn't matter, as long as you teach them to read outside?
I think your last point is spot on. Shortsightedness isn't inevitable, but it's not a coincidence that there's a spike after kids start school. But close focus work per se isn't a problem, unless it's done for long periods in low light intensities.
Anecdotally, I read a lot outside and also read in my bedroom simply by the light of the moon 😂 which is probably much worse than using a flashlight. I’m in my late 20s and don’t have vision issues! When I was in grad school I wore some prescribed readers for fatigue, but I haven’t worn them much since, and I read about 2-4 books a month. So I think as long as your kids are getting lots of sunlight and time outside, letting them have the occasional night time reading binge is probably not going to mess up their eyes. We had a hammock and I would read there — it was great motivation for me to lay in that while reading outside!
Yeah absolutely agree. Our bodies need variety, so in all honesty, occasional night-time binges are probably better than none at all. But given how great books are, I found it hard to limit night-time binges to occasionally! :D
Age will likely have an input too. How old were you, do you think?
This gave me so much to think about! My 11 year old is notorious for reading late into the night. She uses a red light nightlight for this purpose, but I’m guessing it’s the dimness of the room that’s the issue, not the light wavelength?
This is a really good question. A REALLY good question.
Low-level red light therapy is a promising treatment for slowing myopia progression, and that's typically a very specific wavelength of red light delivered into the eye for 3 minutes twice a day (such as in this paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016164202400318X ).
My guess is that reading under red light in the evening is probably better than reading under bright white light in the evening, but both are worse than reading in daylight in the middle of the day. I think there may be a interactions between a circadian effect, a mechanical effect (holding a set focal distance for a long time), and a light wavelength effect going on (and maybe more, bodies are very complex!).
Spending time outside at night doesn't seem nearly as bad as reading at night for the eyes - and I'm guessing that's because you don't have the dimness/close focus interaction going on.
Maybe it's something to discuss with her and get her perspectives on!
very interesting. How do you think this plays into the debate about when is the best age to teach children to read. Or, maybe it doesn't matter, as long as you teach them to read outside?
Great question!
I think your last point is spot on. Shortsightedness isn't inevitable, but it's not a coincidence that there's a spike after kids start school. But close focus work per se isn't a problem, unless it's done for long periods in low light intensities.
Anecdotally, I read a lot outside and also read in my bedroom simply by the light of the moon 😂 which is probably much worse than using a flashlight. I’m in my late 20s and don’t have vision issues! When I was in grad school I wore some prescribed readers for fatigue, but I haven’t worn them much since, and I read about 2-4 books a month. So I think as long as your kids are getting lots of sunlight and time outside, letting them have the occasional night time reading binge is probably not going to mess up their eyes. We had a hammock and I would read there — it was great motivation for me to lay in that while reading outside!
Yeah absolutely agree. Our bodies need variety, so in all honesty, occasional night-time binges are probably better than none at all. But given how great books are, I found it hard to limit night-time binges to occasionally! :D
Age will likely have an input too. How old were you, do you think?