Transient Smartphone Blindness

Some researchers are suggesting that staring at your smartphone at night could “wreak havoc on your vision,” in a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine on June 22nd. The doctors describe in the letter that “two women went temporarily blind” in one eye from checking their phones in the dark on a regular basis.

The researchers believe that this is a form of “transient blindness” caused by smartphones, according to an NPR blog. The women were looking at their phones while in bed with one eye covered, which caused one eye to adapt to the light and the other to adapt to the dark, according to the blog.

This “optical trick” typically only lasts for a few minutes, according to HealthDay. According to this article, you should inform patients to look at their phone with both eyes to avoid this phenomenon.