No evidence that digital devices cause eye damage, researchers say

Long-term gazing at electronic devices can definitely lead to dry eye. But does it lead to actual blindness?

Headlines flared last August when news reports claimed that a University of Toledo study — published in the journal Scientific Reports — suggested that digital devices could lead to blindness.

The report made no such claim, say researchers.

In fact, the American Academy of Ophthalmology declared: “There is no scientific evidence that blue light from digital devices causes damage to your eye. The researchers took cells that are not from the eye, put them together with retinal (molecules) in a way that doesn’t occur in the body, and exposed the cells to light in a way that doesn’t happen in nature.”

What the research found is that blue light (which comes in part from the sun) allows retinal proteins to release molecules that can destroy other cells. They found that photoreceptor cells were most vulnerable since they do not regenerate and, in their absence, lead to age-related macular degeneration — a leading cause of blindness in the U.S.

A few weeks after the report appeared, the researchers’ website acknowledged that “our study does not show that light from mobile devices or other digital screens causes blindness.”