Are Screens Bad For My Child’s Eyes?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 April 2018
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Short-sightedness is reaching epidemic proportions around the world. The way things are progressing, one-third of the world’s population – 2.5 billion people - could need glasses by the end of the decade. And scientists are beginning to understand why: children spend too much time indoors, bent over screens and books. Marnie Chesterton travels to Singapore, where rates of myopia are one of the highest in the world and to see how the government is curbing the condition with an array of tools, from eye-drops to sunshine remedies.
She does so in the hope of better understanding whether screens are bad for children’s eyes, a question raised by a concerned Mexican father, Fernando, about his two-year old daughter.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Graihagh Jackson
(Photo: A little girl wearing headphones while using a digital tablet at home. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. We know that almost 70% of the world population has a device. |
| 0:37.0 | Smart device is only going to get smarter, the uptake is increasing |
| 0:45.0 | and the age of uptake is decreasing so our young kids are using devices. |
| 0:50.0 | That's ophthalmologist Dr Mo DeRani in Singapore. |
| 0:53.2 | As he suggests children are spending more and more time on smartphones and |
| 0:57.4 | tablets. |
| 0:58.4 | For example, here in Singapore, around 50% of seven-year-olds |
| 1:01.9 | have their own device. |
| 1:03.0 | Whilst children aged between 9 and 12 are spending up to 50 hours a week glued to screens. |
| 1:11.0 | I'm Marnie Chesterton, and this is crowd science from the BBC World Service and today we've come to Singapore |
| 1:17.2 | to investigate what effect increasing screen uses having on our eyesight. But this story really begins in Mexico with this |
| 1:25.5 | little lady. |
| 1:28.5 | Ola, Graya. |
| 1:30.9 | Ola. |
| 1:32.1 | Ola Graya. D. Graya. Ohh. Ohh graya. |
| 1:34.0 | What? |
... |
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