Temporary blindness from using phone in the dark

The warning was issued by experts after two cases of temporary blindness due to using phones in the dark were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Specifically, two women aged 22 and 40 experienced "phone blindness" for several months.

Photo: DM.

According to CBS News, the patients complained of vision loss lasting up to 15 minutes. Tests, including MRIs and heart rate checks, showed no signs of abnormalities. It was only when the two patients saw an ophthalmologist that the mystery was solved.

"I asked them what they were doing when this happened," said Dr. Gordon Plant from Moorfield Eye Hospital, London (UK). He revealed that both women were lying on their sides, one eye on the phone and the other pressed against the pillow. "So one eye had to adapt to the light and the other had to adapt to the dark," Plant explained. When they put the phone down, they could not see anything with the eye that had just looked at the phone because the eye needed a few minutes to adjust.

According to Plant, temporary blindness is mostly harmless and can be easily prevented by looking at your phone with both eyes.

Dr. Rahul Khurana, a spokesman for the American Optometric Association, said the hypothesis was interesting, but more research was needed before confirming that using a phone with one eye causes temporary blindness.

According to VNE