Smartphone gazing in the dark can make you 'blind'

In a warning to those who sleep with their devices next to them researchers have found two women who were affected by transient smartphone blindness a condition where they went blind in one eye after gazing at smartphones in the darkThe first patient a 22yearold woman in England had a habit of gazing at her smartphone before falling asleepRepresentational pictureShe would lie on her left side and look at the screen primarily with her right eye Her left eye was often covered by the pillow wwwnprorg reported on ThursdayThe other patient in her 40s had similar problems when she woke up before sunrise and checked the news on her smartphone before sitting upIt had been going on for about a year ever since she had injured her cornea Around the same time she bought a smartphone the report addedThey were looking at their smartphones and they just happened to have one eye covered because they were lying in bed Omar Mahroo ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and an author reported in a paper published in The New England Journal of MedicineIn both cases nothing bad was going on Mahroo said adding that it is just that one retina was adapted to light and the other to darkThe retina is pretty amazing because it can adapt to lots of different light levels probably better than any camera he notedRetinas constantly adjust when someone leaves a room and enters a slightly dimmer room or goes inside after being outdoorsBut these two women experienced a rare scenario in which that change would actually be noticeableTo get to the root of the problem the researchers asked the two patients to view the smartphone with just the left eye and then just the right eye on separate occasionsAlso Read 1 in 8 Indians at risk of developing irreversible blindness Clinical expertThey realised that the eye going temporarily blind was always the one that was being used to look at the bright screenTo confirm this further Mahroo went in a dark room and with one eye covered looked at a smartphone for 20 minutes before turning off the screenIt did actually feel quite strange he said It would be very alarming if you didnt know what was going onAfter flashes of dim light the retina that had been exposed to the screen took longer to adjust to new light settingsAccording to Mahroo several other patients have said they experienced concerning vision loss because of smartphone useWe dont know of any ill effects as of now but it can be jarring the authors notedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever