When I send my children to school, I imagine that I am sending them
into an environment where caring professionals are encouraging and
challenging them to learn new ideas and engage in new experiences,
anxious to open my kids' eyes to new possibilities. I am counting on
teachers to provide understandable connections to what the kids already
know and help them create a bridge to their future studies.
Fundamental
to the teachers' efforts, I imagine, is an overarching concern for my
children's well-being.
So I confess I am baffled by the silence
from teachers, when it comes to the health risks caused by daily
classroom screen time. I would have expected educators to clamor for
more information, call for medical and scientific support, and rush to
mitigate the situation once they learned that daily use of digital
devices poses serious health risks to their students. But that hasn't
happened, despite all the media attention and medical research that has
recently been made available.
And the research is clear: daily
computer use damages children. Myopia tops the list. The USC Roski Eye
Institute, in its largest and most recent myopia study, showed that daily screen time is the likely culprit for childhood myopia doubling in our country.
Retinal
damage (which can lead to macular degeneration and blindness) is next.
Prevent Blindness America and voluminous medical researchers report that
children's eyes absorb more blue light than adults: the damaging HEV rays go straight to the back of a child's eye.
Blurred
vision, dry eyes and headaches. Obesity, sleeplessness and anxiety.
Addiction. These are the side effects of children who spend their school
days online and their evenings glued to their screens for homework.
It's all medically documented, and the research grows daily. (This is
not hard-to-find, esoteric documentation; major news outlets across the
country have covered the health hazards of screen time extensively over
the past year. Search the phrases "computer vision syndrome," "digital
eye strain," or "blue light damage.")...
http://www.bamradionetwork.com/edwords-blog/first-do-no-harm
Affordable Health Care to the rescue
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