SUMMARY POINTS
You may have seen this in your social media ad feeds, recommended purchases on your online shopping basket and maybe even your local eyeglass or sunglass store.
The ad touts the benefits of using blue light filtering glasses to…
“Save your eyesight”
“Prevent eye damage”
“Eliminate eye fatigue”
“Stop harmful blue lightwaves”
The claim is that blue light is harmful to your eyes, more specifically, the blue light emitted by your computer screen is causing your eye fatigue and can damage your eyes.
The marketing and hard sell of blue light filtering glasses make them seem like a medical requirement for “anyone who looks at a screen for more than 15 minutes a day.”
Well, that’s pretty much everyone on this planet.
The short answer is that the blue light from your computer monitors isn’t burning holes in retinas and that this is just a marketing ploy to get you to buy shit you don’t need.
The ad touts the benefits of using blue light filtering glasses to…
“Save your eyesight”
“Prevent eye damage”
“Eliminate eye fatigue”
“Stop harmful blue lightwaves”
The claim is that blue light is harmful to your eyes, more specifically, the blue light emitted by your computer screen is causing your eye fatigue and can damage your eyes.
The marketing and hard sell of blue light filtering glasses make them seem like a medical requirement for “anyone who looks at a screen for more than 15 minutes a day.”
Well, that’s pretty much everyone on this planet.
The short answer is that the blue light from your computer monitors isn’t burning holes in retinas and that this is just a marketing ploy to get you to buy shit you don’t need.
The Truth Behind Blue Light Glasses
Marketers do their best to sway and influence you to act, behave or take action on something. Whether it’s a fancy new car, the latest pharmaceuticals, designer clothes or whatever else they want to sell you, marketers need to get to the core of your primal needs and wants. The goal is to trigger those emotions so that you convince yourself that what they have to offer is a necessity in your life.
To aid their efforts, marketers must build and establish trust and credibility with their target audience. And one of the classic ways to do this is to provide “unbiased” evidence through medical studies.
You’ve probably seen countless TV commercials of a “doctor” dressed in a white lab coat explaining the benefits of how a particular drug or supplement can improve and protect your health. This is kinda like the medical study method only in video form.
Take a look at this cigarette commercial from the 1960’s. We shit you not, commercials like this touted smoking cigarettes as a good thing.
To aid their efforts, marketers must build and establish trust and credibility with their target audience. And one of the classic ways to do this is to provide “unbiased” evidence through medical studies.
You’ve probably seen countless TV commercials of a “doctor” dressed in a white lab coat explaining the benefits of how a particular drug or supplement can improve and protect your health. This is kinda like the medical study method only in video form.
Take a look at this cigarette commercial from the 1960’s. We shit you not, commercials like this touted smoking cigarettes as a good thing.
In today’s medical or health-related commercials, if you pay attention to the fine print disclaimers on some of these ads, you’ll see a disclaimer that calls out that the person is not a real doctor but a portrayal. However, since nobody can read the microscopic disclaimers, people see a doctor and think it’s a real medical endorsement.
These are the exact tactics companies use to market and sell blue light filtering glasses. A lot of retailers that sell prescription glasses and sunglasses will point to medical studies about how lab tests have proven that blue light is harmful to your eyes and vision. And while it’s a valid statement, they’re stretching the truth - quite a bit.
A lot of the studies they are referencing are most often related to clinical tests that use high-intensity blue light lasers that are being focused on biological samples at the cellular level. In these cases, the high-powered blue light focusing on the cell does cause damage.
This is fundamentally no different when you take a magnifying glass and focus the sunlight on a single point. It’s got enough power to burn almost anything.
So, when retailers are hard selling their blue light filtering glasses as a protective measure for computer users, it’s total bullshit. There isn’t enough power or focused intensity from your computer screen to cause any damage to your eyes. If it did, there would’ve been high-profile class action lawsuits decades ago when color monitors first came out.
These are the exact tactics companies use to market and sell blue light filtering glasses. A lot of retailers that sell prescription glasses and sunglasses will point to medical studies about how lab tests have proven that blue light is harmful to your eyes and vision. And while it’s a valid statement, they’re stretching the truth - quite a bit.
A lot of the studies they are referencing are most often related to clinical tests that use high-intensity blue light lasers that are being focused on biological samples at the cellular level. In these cases, the high-powered blue light focusing on the cell does cause damage.
This is fundamentally no different when you take a magnifying glass and focus the sunlight on a single point. It’s got enough power to burn almost anything.
So, when retailers are hard selling their blue light filtering glasses as a protective measure for computer users, it’s total bullshit. There isn’t enough power or focused intensity from your computer screen to cause any damage to your eyes. If it did, there would’ve been high-profile class action lawsuits decades ago when color monitors first came out.
Why Your Eyes Feel Strained
There’s no question that your eyes get strained and tired at work. And, those selling blue light glasses wil often point to that and say that it’s due to the excessive blue light coming from your screen.
However, like mentioned before, it’s not from blue light. The eye strain your experiencing is primarily due to the fact that you’re staring and blinking less while working. This is commonly known as digital eye strain or computer vision syndrome.
This happens a lot when you’re in the zone at work and banging out tasks left and right like a superhuman. You’re not blinking as much and with all the rapid eye movements of scanning the screen, your eyes aren’t getting the normal amount of lubrication from blinking. Thus, you experience more eye fatigue.
The easiest solution to this problem is to do the 20-20-20 break. Every 20 minutes take a 20 second break and look at something that’s 20 feet away from you. This allows you to relax your focus to something further away and blink more. It’s a great way to give your eyeballs a break.
And while you’re at it, why not do a one-minute meditation too? This way, you’ll be relaxing your mind for a bit too before you get back to the grunt work.
However, like mentioned before, it’s not from blue light. The eye strain your experiencing is primarily due to the fact that you’re staring and blinking less while working. This is commonly known as digital eye strain or computer vision syndrome.
This happens a lot when you’re in the zone at work and banging out tasks left and right like a superhuman. You’re not blinking as much and with all the rapid eye movements of scanning the screen, your eyes aren’t getting the normal amount of lubrication from blinking. Thus, you experience more eye fatigue.
The easiest solution to this problem is to do the 20-20-20 break. Every 20 minutes take a 20 second break and look at something that’s 20 feet away from you. This allows you to relax your focus to something further away and blink more. It’s a great way to give your eyeballs a break.
And while you’re at it, why not do a one-minute meditation too? This way, you’ll be relaxing your mind for a bit too before you get back to the grunt work.
Don’t Buy Blue Light Filtering Glasses - Just Take Breaks
For many of us that stare at monitors all day long, our eyes get strained and fatigued daily. Some days are worse than others but most days, it feels like your eyes are just get wrecked.
With each passing week, it feels like your vision is getting worse. But it’s not because of blue light. It’s simply because we’re working our eyeballs to the max and not blinking and taking breaks. Plus, if you’re getting up there in age, it’s natural for presbyopia to creep in - that’s when it get hard to focus on nearby things.
Instead of wasting your money on blue light filtering glasses, you’d be better off buying a pair of comfy athletic shoes and doing easy low-sweat workouts at the office. It’s a great way to get your mind off things and burn some calories at the same time.
Feel Better,
[Cubicle|Therapy]
With each passing week, it feels like your vision is getting worse. But it’s not because of blue light. It’s simply because we’re working our eyeballs to the max and not blinking and taking breaks. Plus, if you’re getting up there in age, it’s natural for presbyopia to creep in - that’s when it get hard to focus on nearby things.
Instead of wasting your money on blue light filtering glasses, you’d be better off buying a pair of comfy athletic shoes and doing easy low-sweat workouts at the office. It’s a great way to get your mind off things and burn some calories at the same time.
Feel Better,
[Cubicle|Therapy]