7 Healthcast: Smart phone eye strain warning

We call click and play on mobile devices and now more than three quarters of America are plugged in to the internet 90% of users are experiencing eye strain.

Optometrist Dr. Jeffrey Hankin says "spend a lot of time on computers. We're computerized all day long sometimes go home with a little bit of eye strain"

A new study from optometrist and vision science recommends eye doctors, like Dr. Hankin, change the way they prescribe to adjust for reading small text at shorter distances.

Dr. Hankin says "especially low far-sighted people those are the people that typically don't wear glasses for distance til they hit their forties. Those people will get some eye strain as they use their eyes more and more on a smart phone especially very close."

But how cose are we getting? Dr. Hankin says many people are pulling their smart phone four inches closer than normal reading distance and it could cause this.

Dr. Hankin says "almost a headache across the front of your eyes. They just feel tired maybe a little trouble focusing. Sometimes your blink rate will slow down and you'll get that dry eye kind of feeling. If you're really having a bad day you can get that thin cry watery tear."

It's all about focus. Dr. Hankin says we are born with perfect focus that deteriorates starting day one, so the older your are often the harder it is, but young people aren't off the hook.

Dr. Hankin says "they spend a lot of time studying and computers are part of every classroom everything's visual these days testing computers television so even people in their teens and twenties can get eye strain."

He recommends increasing font size on your device and holding the device further away to help your eyes focus.

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