Developer Warns VR Headset Damaged Eyesight (bbc.com) 109
Software developer Danny Bittman tweeted about how he's convinced that his eyesight was damaged from wearing a VR headset for hours a day. The BBC reports: Danny Bittman, who has worked as a virtual reality developer for four years, suggested it could have affected his eyesight. "Just had my first eye doctor visit in three years. Now I'm very worried about my future VR use. I have a new eye convergence problem that acts like dyslexia. The doc, a headset owner, is convinced my VR use caused this. He said "these glasses we usually prescribe to 40-year-olds," he tweeted. He went on to describe the problem: "My eyes jump when I read things like a screen or books. I've always had a small level of this but it's greatly intensified now. It's also linked to headaches and vertigo."
He said that the issue was about "prolonged use," and admitted that he could spend up to six hours a day wearing a headset, split into 30-minute sessions. Ceri Smith-Jaynes, from the Association of Optometrists, told the BBC: "We currently do not have any reliable evidence that VR headsets cause permanent deterioration in eyesight in children or adults. There have been some studies looking into the effects of short-term use of VR headsets only; these did not reveal a deterioration in eyesight. "However, some people do suffer from temporary symptoms such as nausea, dry, irritable eyes, headache or eyestrain." But she did have some advice about usage: "If you spend all day in VR without a break, you'll need time to readjust to the light and the different visual environment of the real world. I would suggest taking a five-to-ten minute break each hour, using that time to move about, blink and look out of a window, or take a short walk.
He said that the issue was about "prolonged use," and admitted that he could spend up to six hours a day wearing a headset, split into 30-minute sessions. Ceri Smith-Jaynes, from the Association of Optometrists, told the BBC: "We currently do not have any reliable evidence that VR headsets cause permanent deterioration in eyesight in children or adults. There have been some studies looking into the effects of short-term use of VR headsets only; these did not reveal a deterioration in eyesight. "However, some people do suffer from temporary symptoms such as nausea, dry, irritable eyes, headache or eyestrain." But she did have some advice about usage: "If you spend all day in VR without a break, you'll need time to readjust to the light and the different visual environment of the real world. I would suggest taking a five-to-ten minute break each hour, using that time to move about, blink and look out of a window, or take a short walk.
Does the UK have workers comp? and big injury laws (Score:2)
Does the UK have workers comp? and big injury lawsuits?
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Does the UK have workers comp? and big injury lawsuits?
Yes, but that may require something completely lacking in TFA: Actual evidence.
Since anecdotes are now considered news, here's mine: My eyesight is pretty bad and I only used a VR headset for about five minutes, once.
Re:Does the UK have workers comp? and big injury l (Score:5, Interesting)
I know the exact problem he's having because I've had the exact same problem before, and I'm having to read between the lines with regard to the glasses normally given to 40 year olds, but it sounds like he was given a prism lens, which is only going to make the problem worse when he's not wearing glasses (i.e. when he's using the VR headset.) This is a common thing that optometrists do and it's a bad thing. The correct way to deal with it is visual therapy, though in his case he could try to adjust the VR headset to where the lenses are correctly oriented relative to the center of his eyes, or even temporarily overcorrect in the other direction to force him into the habit of converging his eyes correctly.
Most of the work of this is done in your visual cortex, which it turns out can be trained to do all sorts of things:
https://www.theguardian.com/ed... [theguardian.com]
I personally was born with a lazy eye and had to train my eyes to diverge properly in order to have proper binocular vision.
OptiGrab! (Score:2)
Meh, been there, done that [blogspot.com]
"The Opti-Grab was invented by Naven R. Johnson, a fictional character from the movie The Jerk. The device attaches to a pair of glasses to stop them from sliding down your nose, while also acting as a handle to put on and remove your glasses. ..Unfortunately, there was a huge side effect of using this product. When the customers removed their glasses they were permanently cross-eyed due to there eyes being attracted to the Opti-Grab when they had their glasses on."
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Re: Does the UK have workers comp? and big injury (Score:2)
Oh my god, it only takes five minutes to cause it!
Re: Does the UK have workers comp? and big injury (Score:1)
My eyesight is pretty bad and I only used a VR headset for about five minutes, once.
My eyesight is fucking amazing and I too have only used VR once. Nonetheless it shouldn't require sky-high intelligence and a planet-sized ability to accurately and astutely predict shit such as this yet apparently it does, as I'm the only one I've heard call this one.
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So let's see... from the evidence we've collected anecdotally... there is... precisely no link between VR usage and eyesight.
Glad we had this discussion.
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I think maybe you have your inter-ocular distance set correctly and he doesn't.
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Nonetheless it shouldn't require sky-high intelligence and a planet-sized ability to accurately and astutely predict shit
Indeed. That's why we have science and they so far have found no issues with VR outside of a young in development brain being visually tricked potentially causing issues later in life.
In other news listening to a Trump speech doesn't give me a speech impediment, at least I don't think it does bigly.
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Maybe not, the law is complicated but the onus is on the employer to do a risk assessment for using a VR headset for 6 hours a day and to monitor the health of employees who do so. The employer also has to pay for regular vision checks for anyone using a VDU which this would certainly count as.
If he stopped using the headset and his vision improved that would probably be enough for the court to decide on the balance of probabilities that the headset had some effect and his employer didn't take enough care.
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Does the UK have workers comp? and big injury lawsuits?
Yes, but that may require something completely lacking in TFA: Actual evidence.
There's an old experiment from the 1970s (or earlier) where you make somebody wear glasses that turn the world upside down. The first day it's a disaster but after a week you can ride bicycles, etc.
Then you take the glasses off and it's a disaster. Your brain can't instantly go back, it takes another week to reconfigure back to the way it was before.
Now imagine those people went to the optician the day after they took off the glasses. They'd be registered as legally blind, sent for brain scans, disability p
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Your vision is upside-down on the cornea naturally. We actually have to learn to see it right side-up.
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i feel it utterly strange that you hear almost nothing about VR-sets and eyesight, no pro- or con but actually No research, whle since a kid ive been told to keep a safe distance from a screen and sit in a well-lit room and what not this thing sits just a few skins from your eyes. If not for the bombardment in light and whatever waves it radiates , its probably not at a constant 20 degrees or something air-temperature so it
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Except he knows for a fact that it was a pre-existing condition and his use of the VR headset exacerbated it.
If anything, it might be a valid ADA-type complaint (UK equivalent) rather than a work injury.
Re: Does the UK have workers comp? and big injury (Score:1)
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Yes, the more important question is does this guy have any proof or science to back his claims? The answer there is no. VR use and its effect on the eyes has been studied at lot over the past 5 years specifically and while there is evidence of potential issues they are all linked to developmental problems early in life.
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while there is evidence of potential issues they are all linked to developmental problems early in life.
He admitted as much - he has that.
From the summary:
I've always had a small level of this but it's greatly intensified now.
This isn't a work injury, but it's potentially a disability that should require reasonable accommodation by an employer. At least now that this person has put 2 and 2 together and realized he has an issue.
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They don't have a diopter adjustment? My DSLR is nothing fancy and the viewfinder has this. Any set of binoculars too. It's insane for something as expensive as a VR headset not to have this.
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I've noticed with some VR configurations (like a lens mod to my headset) that my eyes feel strained into an unnatural convergence. I had to reverse my mod back to Fresnel lenses from the Gear VR's clear domed lenses for that reason. The symptoms weren't any visual change in one eye's vision, but a feeling like I was straining muscles or training my brain into converging my eyes at a slightly different spot than they wanted when focusi
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For a split second I read your opening sentence as “I don’t believe in astigmatism” and was thinking the anti-science movement was taking ridiculous to an even higher level.
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eye astigmatism
As opposed to, say, penis astigmatism?
VR Blindness is the new EM/RF allergy (Score:5, Insightful)
People like to be clever and blame unique things for their problems. I doubt, given all the people using VR, that one guy having nondescript eye issues is somehow absolute proof VR is the cause.
I really dislike these clickbait articles making pronouncements based on a single anecdotal case, based on somebody's "gut feeling". That's not science, it's not anything reasonable. Just stop it.
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You mean like the first articles relating cancer to smoking weren't "science", but "pronouncements on anectodal cases"? Too bad they didn't stop, eh?
Re:VR Blindness is the new EM/RF allergy (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean like the first articles relating cancer to smoking weren't "science", but "pronouncements on anectodal cases"?
Actually, surprisingly, yes, they were and still are exactly that, anecdotal and not science. But it is far easier to demonize smoking itself rather than the actual "thing" that is bad, which is not tobacco and not smoking.
If you ever noticed how healthy Native Americans are usually described and depicted from history, you have to wonder about the old ones that sit around together smoking all their lives. Turns out it actually all does depend on what you smoke. [youtube-nocookie.com] If you're smoking reconstituted tobacco and the chemicals infused in ordinary national brand US cigarettes, then you will soon die and are a victim of the 1950's chemical revolution and what Big Tobacco has been doing to Americans ever since, i.e. killing us by the hundreds of thousands per year for profit, and are a victim also somewhat of the US Department of Justice that "brought them to justice" in the early 1990's, only to allow them to continue the self-same and identical methods of producing their deadly product and more or less continue their genocidal practice of murdering Americans for profit, along with a big fine that was ultimately forgiven and the massive taxes passed on to the victims.
As it turns out factually and scientifically, smoking tobacco isn't inherently all that bad for you. It does cause emphysema, which isn't good and no one needs, but it doesn't kill you, with cancer or by any other known fatal illness. What is killing people is that most smokers are not smoking tobacco, but, instead, half tobacco and half recorrugated garbage off the floor made into a paper before shredding and infused with additives like 300 carcinogenic chemicals intended to increase the addictiveness of nicotine and smoking.
The scientific reference authority on smoking and health is still the 1964 US Surgeon General Report Smoking and Health No subsequent report or other studies contradict it.
No. 1103, p.112
Death rates for current pipe smokers were little if at all higher than for non-smokers, even with men smoking 10 pipefuls per day and with men who had smoked pipes for more than 30 years.
(No. 1103, page 92)
Among the pipe smokers.... The US mortality ratios are 0.8 for non-inhalers and 1.0 for inhalers.
The difference between what is in nearly all national brand cigarettes and pipe tobacco is that pipe tobacco is just tobacco. Native American Spirit brand is the only named brand of cigarettes that I know of that has as its only ingredients tobacco and water. I have heard that some indy brands sold at Indian reservations also have only tobacco and water as their ingredients. Everything else is still killing people.
Re: VR Blindness is the new EM/RF allergy (Score:1)
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that only depends on what effect the smoke has on your lungs, you do breathe it out again after all, so it could possibly be quite harmless and inert. Somewhat like breathing in clouds of water vapour (eg after a very long hot shower) doesn't harm you itself - only if you fail to get enough oxygen in as well.
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They didn't chain smoke ceremonial pipes like people do with cigarettes today.
Cancer detection was very primitive back then, so we didn't get the full pi
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Apparently most native American smoking also doesn't involve inhalation. Cigar smoking doesn't really carry an increased rate of lung cancer because you don't inhale the smoke.
Meanwhile (Score:2)
Marijuana has still killed exactly zero people.
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Excluding car crashes and similar, I presume?
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The Surgeon General C. Everett Koop stated that radioactivity, rather than tar, accounts for at least 90% of all smoking-related lung cancers. The Center for Disease Control concluded "Americans are exposed to far more radiation from tobacco smoke than from any other source."
https://www.lenntech.com.pt/pe... [lenntech.com.pt]
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...which means pipe smokers who inhale live as long as nonsmokers, and pipe smokers that don’t inhale live longer than non-smokers.
Yeah, dream on. So according to this people who inhaled (basically absorbing the tobacco smoke at an increased rate) had NO net effect, and people who didn't inhale had their life extended.
I guess you're one of those people who are so open minded that your brain fell out. Or maybe it's those pipes you've been smoking. Either way, these numbers seem to be bullshit. But i suspect that you're going to argue that there can't be anything wrong with research and these numbers must therefore be representative.
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I doubt, given all the people using VR, that one guy having nondescript eye issues is somehow absolute proof VR is the cause.
In this case, despite the conflicting info every other sentence, it actually is plausible.
The guy admits to having problems with his eye muscles since childhood, preventing proper eye alignment.
Since VR headsets rely on hijacking parallax to function, a very well known form of eye strain is being applied to already damaged and strained eyes.
Sadly none of the eye doctors he saw before bothered to tell him how normal eyes work and how his eyes are not normal.
Of course VR headset function was almost unknown ou
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This isn't a gut feeling. There was an EYE DOCTOR involved. Sure that eye doctor may have never used a VR headset. That eye doctor may not even know what a VR headset is. But he's a doctor dammit!
Re: VR Blindness is the new EM/RF allergy (Score:2)
Optometrists aren't actually doctors.
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It makes sense that extensive use of a VR headset would affect your vision, the same way that extended use of a normal computer monitor does if you don't make any effort to protect yourself.
I started having problems focusing and associated eye strain over a decade ago. The optician showed me some simple exercises that mostly fixed it. Turns out your eye muscles are like any other, if you strain them for long periods day in day out they get stiff and can even suffer permanent damage.
In case anyone is interes
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It makes sense that extensive use of a VR headset would affect your vision, the same way that extended use of a normal computer monitor does if you don't make any effort to protect yourself.
I started having problems focusing and associated eye strain over a decade ago. The optician showed me some simple exercises that mostly fixed it. Turns out your eye muscles are like any other, if you strain them for long periods day in day out they get stiff and can even suffer permanent damage.
In case anyone is interested the exercise I use is to take a small object like a pencil, ideally with writing on it so you can focus on that. Hold it at arm's length and slowly move it towards you, keeping your eyes focused on it. Do that a few times, and repeat a few times a day. Fixed my headaches and improved my distance vision in a few weeks.
So you really found that it works? I've heard for a while that the muscles basically get messed up with the perpetual close up with computer screens and reading. But I haven't believed it enough to discipline myself to start practicing. But then I should because I know what happens as complications of short sightedness get worse... like detached retinas, vitrectomy, cataracts...
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All I can say is that it worked for me. I found I could focus more easily and the headaches went away.
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I'm not close to 50 yet and certainly wasn't a decade ago.
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I am gen X, depending on where you put the cut off.
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At around 45-50 years old the muscles your eyes use to adjust your focus start to deteriorate
Nope, it's actually the tissue that makes up the lens that loses flexibility and starts to dry out. The muscles are just fine.
False premise. Nintendo had evidence decades ago. (Score:3, Interesting)
Nintendo's medical research did conclusively prove that stereoscopic VR projection caused permanent developmental damage to the vision centers of the brain in a specific age range of children (6-8 yrs old, I think?) and quietly pulled the VirtualBoy over this discovery.
Based on only that information it is completely plausible it could hurt people of any age range given enough extended use.
Citation needed (Score:4, Informative)
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Indeed I've found no reference to the virtual boy or from studies back in the day, but the companies which have funded studies into VR all have one thing in common: they don't recommend people under 12/13 to use the headsets (though admittedly Sony says it's because the PSVR doesn't fit on the head of a child) Companies aren't known for voluntarily not selling to a portion of a population.
Mind you the only thing concrete I've found anywhere is a study related to development in rats and a general acceptance
Precautionary principle (Score:2)
TL;DR : there is no real study. We can act with precaution like the firm did to not be destroyed in an tsunami of lawsuit, which is also fine, BUT pretend they were study buried from Ni
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they don't recommend people under 12/13 to use the headsets (though admittedly Sony says it's because the PSVR doesn't fit on the head of a child)
That's surprising, because the PSVR headset is shockingly tight on the head of an adult due to the strength of its rubber bands. I, along with many others, have had to modify it with cable ties to keep it at full extension to avoid getting a severe pressure headache.
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I'm certain it was buried even back at that time and not widely reported on. The story you tell is the version they would much rather the public remember. Blinding little kids isn't a good look for a toy company. I didn't even find out myself until a few years after, despite my suspicions at the time. That you couldn't dig up a direct reference with some Google searches 3 decades later is utterly unsurprising to me.
Pretending a study is buried is cheap (Score:2)
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some say merely *imagining* looking through a virtualboy can cause permanent damage
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Based on only that information it is completely plausible it could hurt people of any age range given enough extended use.
That's like saying people of any age could be hurt by listening to a Trump speech. No I'm not going for troll here, there's a very big difference between the human brain during its developmental phase and the rest of its adult life and that difference which is widely understood means that something which applies to us during one phase of development doesn't at all mean that it would apply during another. In fact it's quite well understood that failures during that developmental stage are difficult if not ou
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Intuitively, almost anything for a prolonged period will do you harm - eventually.
It's been well documented that sitting at your desk, with eyes fixed at a certain distance will affect your eyesight (and numerous other things related to sitting down all day). It's really not much of a reach to see that a VR headset will do something bad, eventually.
It's possible that the tech in a headset could become so sophisticated that it could alter the optics during use so that it actually exercises your eyes to conve
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I actually like this idea and I think you're onto something. I agree that in theory this also suggests the optics could be carefully designed to actually exercise your eyes and safely strengthen your vision. At least, in theory. Getting research funding for that type of thing would be difficult at best though since modern medical practice forbids even proposing this type of treatment.
This is why we cant have nice things (Score:2)
Some idiot blames their macular and mental degeneration on something fun and there goes the party for everyone.
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There is no evidence of
I've had enough of that particular form of nonspeech pretending to be a rebuttal.
Actually, pointing out a lack of evidence is a pretty good rebuttal.
Ob Penny Arcade (Score:2)
3D gaming is bad for your eyes [penny-arcade.com].
It's about premature presbyopia ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The key to understanding that is the quote from his doctor, "these glasses we usually prescribe to 40-year-olds." That's because EVERYONE develops presbyopia (aka "farsightedness"), if they live long enough. It's caused by the lens becoming too rigid for the muscles inside the eye to squeeze it sufficiently to allow it to properly focus up close. That's a normal consequence of aging, but it can also be brought on or accelerated (because presbyopia is progressive - the older you get, the worse it gets) by spending too many hours focusing on things at a close, unvarying distance over a long period of time.
The link between long hours of staring into a computer monitor and developing premature presbyopia is firmly enough established that the American Optometric Association calls the condition Computer Vision Syndrome [aoa.org] or, alternatively Digital Eye Strain. Wearing a VR headset for hours and hours every day would be even worse, because, when you're staring into a monitor, you still wind up looking down at your keyboard, or off to one side or the other while you're thinking about what you're looking at, and even those brief glances allow your eyes to change their focal length, however briefly. Wearing a VR headset, you literally have nowhere else to look, so your eyes' focal length never varies. It can't, because everything you're physically capable of looking at is, in reality, at exactly the same distance from your eyes ...
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I both agree and disagree with this. I agree with the premise that wearing VR headsets for hours a day is likely contributing, but disagree with it being worse than many other activities.
Using a computer monitor doesn't provide meaningful variance to your vision. In an office setting maybe if you are constantly interrupted by colleagues but certainly not while gaming, or doing many activities which require concentration. Heck even looking down at my keyboard is likely to vary my focus only by the most margi
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presbyopia (aka "farsightedness")
Presbyopia is NOT the same as hypermetropia (far-sightedness). If that were the case you'd expect myopic people to correct their vision somewhat in their 40's. However what happens is you end up neither seeing near NOR far, without glasses. Presbyopia is a natural phenomenon caused by the drying out of lens tissue over time, causing the lens to lose flexibility. Hyperglycemia from diabetes can accelerate this process and cause it to happen in younger people - on top of all the other ways it can damage your
Re: It's about premature presbyopia ... (Score:2)
The answer is already there... (Score:3)
You don't need to read past "I've always had a small level of this but it's greatly intensified now."
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Wish I had mod points. I had that exact string copied to make a similar post. It is not normal for the eyes to "jump" when reading things. It sounds like he had a specific preexisting vision issue, which may or may not have been exacerbated by the headset.
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You should never wait three years, even if you're healthy.
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All current VR forms are dangerous (Score:1)
Of course, this happens with normal glasses too (Score:2)
There's a large number of people out there who believe that once you start wearing glasses your vision gets progressively worse. That is despite scientific studies which have found evidence to the contrary.
The guy had a pre-existing condition. It got worse. That stuff happens.
The guy's got a medical professional to agree. Unless that doctor is an expert in the field associated with studying an emerging technology then the fact that he's an eye doctor is an appeal to a false authority.
Not just VR (Score:1)
They used to say exactly the same things about reading books.
Really a "no duh" type of revelation (Score:1)
Studies have shown a tie between lots of upclose reading and myopia.
And your eyes adopt to upside down mirror glasses in about 48 hours.
So wearing a VR goggle where close up things look artificially far away seems like a no brainer.
One solution? Getting outdoors and looking at things that really are far away.
The dosage makes the poison. (Score:1)
At the right dosage, water is deadly.
Let alone salt.
I would have said it is pretty likely that is is not good, to use a headset for *six freaking hours a day*, if it is not completely and utterly equal to just looking at the world normally.
Now we start to find out, what that dosage is.
Doesn't mean salt "is" a poison.
Does't mean headsets "are" a poison.
True (Score:2)
The usual problem (Score:2)
People try to force their eyes to sharpen stuff in the background that is not in focus, the place where you're not supposed to look and obviously it doesn't work, so they strain themselves.
The solution is the usual: Don't do that!
The real source of the problem (Score:2)
Just had my first eye doctor visit in three years.
Three years is far too long for someone with a known vision problem. As he's found out, a lot can happen to one's eyes in three years.
Holy eyeballs Batman! (Score:3)
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Maybe. Magic Eye pictures rely on eye divergence, not convergence.
learn what dyslexia is (Score:1)
CRT Astigmatism (Score:2)
Make sense to me. I have an astigmatism perhaps caused by staring at CRT screens all day. If you recall, CRTs screens curve convex "( )". I think my astigmatism corrected for the curves. I remember when the new flat screen LEDs came out to me they looked concave ") (". It's been a long time since I've stared at a CRT and my astigmatism has improved and screens look normal "| |" now.
I have the very same condition! (Score:2)
I'm actually quite read up on this issue, because I have it myself and I've even had surgery for it. The root cause is that the resting position of the eyes is not parallel, they are pointing outwards when you close your eyes. This is a condition that you and I were born with. If one eye is very dominant, the brain will learn to ignore the input of the other eye and you get exotropia. If both eyes are similarly dominant however, the brain will train the eye muscles to subconsciously hold the eyes in paralle
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