TV-addicted children in Britain are creating a future blindness crisis that threatens to engulf the NHS as they grow up, a leading eye surgeon has warned.
Excessive screen time means Generation Z has lost vital natural light during their formative years, with a potentially catastrophic long-term impact on their vision.
The world is already experiencing skyrocketing rates of myopia, with a 46 per cent increase in the UK over the past three decades.
But numbers have reached epidemic levels, and world-renowned eye surgeon Dr Joern Jorgensen warns the situation will only get worse.
Dr Jorgensen, from LEC London, says children staying at home with their devices for a crucial period during puberty means they are not getting enough dopamine, which in turn damages their eyes.
The world is already experiencing skyrocketing rates of myopia, with a 46 per cent increase in the UK over the past three decades. But numbers have reached epidemic levels, and world-renowned eye surgeon Dr Joern Jorgensen warns the situation will only get worse.
Spending long periods of time looking at phones and tablets a few inches from your face can develop nearsightedness or nearsightedness.
The second factor is the amount of time spent looking at phones and tablets a few inches from your face, which can develop nearsightedness or nearsightedness.
In China, where he has eight clinics, Dr. Jorgensen has seen myopia levels jump from 30 percent to 95 percent and more in some areas of the country.
And he warns that the same will happen in Britain without a major change in the way children spend their free time.
Dr Jorgensen, who practices at the London practice and is chief executive of 44 eye surgery clinics worldwide, told MailOnline: “Children don’t go out as much as previous generations, everything they need is in front of them on your devices.” .
‘This means that during a critical moment in their lives they do not receive natural sunlight and that in turn is causing a very notable increase in myopia, it is alarming and what we are seeing is an epidemic.
‘Going out into the daylight to play football, play sports of any kind or simply play with friends causes a chemical process that releases dopamine.
‘We know that it is an inhibitor of the type of growth in the eye that causes myopia. The horizontal part of the eye lengthens and continues to grow, making it difficult to focus.
‘We can encourage children to go out and play more sports, but you can’t reverse what has already happened with social media playing such an important role in their lives.
“The second detrimental factor is the amount of close work that young people do, which is also detrimental.”
Having a screen a few inches from your face means your eyes blink less and overcompensate when focusing for hours on nearby tasks.
Dr Irfan Jeeva, from Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, said more and more young people needed glasses due to exposure to digital devices.
It means that the eye muscles stretch and the lens shifts, causing a gradual elongation of the eyeball and damaging the way we focus on distant objects.
Dr. Jorgensen warns that nearsightedness doesn’t just mean having to order glasses: severe cases can lead to blindness.
Severe cases of myopia in young people increase their chances of developing macular degeneration by 41 percent, studies suggest.
Macular degeneration, one type of which is age-related, is a leading cause of blindness.
Dr Jorgensen said: “Treating AMD is one of the biggest costs facing the NHS and is a huge drain on resources.”
‘A single injection of Lucentis, which is used to treat AMD, costs £1,000 and the patient must receive it every month or risk going blind.
“Severe myopia also dramatically increases the chances of developing other serious diseases such as glaucoma and retinal detachment.
“It is a very serious situation, we are seeing cases of high myopia 30 times more often and that triggers the four factors that cause eye diseases: cataracts, glaucoma, retinal detachment and AMD.”
Through his work in China he has discovered that in rural areas such as Tibet, where children are more likely to be outdoors working on farms, the level of myopia decreases dramatically.
Other eye specialists have echoed his warning.
Dr Irfan Jeeva, from Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, said more and more young people needed glasses due to exposure to digital devices.
Dr Jeeva said phones, tablets and televisions are too often used as “babysitters” but warned parents to limit their children’s screen time.
He told BBC Look North: “We’re still learning about it, but there is enough data to believe that increased exposure to screens can affect visual health, mental health, physical health and emotional health.”
‘Screens are quite addictive. “They have an internal reward mechanism that makes you want to spend more time with them.”
Myopia has already become a major concern for the NHS, a fear compounded by a new study.
The UCL researchers suggested that spending more time reading books at school could be to blame for the rising trend, as study is intensive and more Britons attend university.
Scientists at University College London (UCL) observed that the greatest increase in cases occurred among adults and those with higher academic achievement.
UCL researchers suggested that spending more time reading books at school could be to blame for the rising trend, with intensive study and more Britons attending university.
Around a third of Britons suffer from myopia, which is increasingly common among children.
Research commissioned by the Global Myopia Awareness Coalition found that more than half (52 percent) of children today play less outdoors than their parents did when they were young.
About one in three parents (31 percent) believe their children are addicted to screens, while 54 percent said they would like their children to spend less time watching TV, playing video games or interacting with a tablet.
More than four in 10 (45 percent) of parents did not know that spending too much time in front of a screen can have a negative impact on eye health, while 51 percent did not know that spending time outdoors can delay myopia
Last year, Myopia Focus launched a petition calling for more NHS funding to address the epidemic level of childhood myopia, which it called “a growing public health problem”.
Optometrist Jason Higginbotham, who started the campaign, said: “Due to lifestyle changes, an increasing number of people are at increased risk of developing sight-threatening conditions related to myopia. This should no longer be be considered a potential threat; it is very real.
‘We want to put pressure on ministers to do something about this now. The younger you start therapy, the less likely your child will be at risk of vision loss in the future. “We need the government to act.”