9 in 10 people on screens are experiencing this. Are you?

The Weekly Eye-Opener 
Introducing our New Weekly Series by our Lead Optometrist, Dhruvin Patel

90% of People Who Use Screens Report Eye Strain Symptoms. Most of Them Have No Idea What is Actually Happening.

Dr Bryce Appelbaum has spent his career proving that vision is more than 20/20 eyesight. As a board-certified neuro-optometrist, TEDx speaker, and founder of Vision Performance Training, featured in USA Today, the New York Times, CBS, and NBC, he has one message this week. Nine out of ten digital users report at least one symptom of digital eye strain. Most of them have no idea what is actually happening.

Here is the science behind it.

What the research has measured

90% of digital users report at least one symptom of digital eye strain, headaches, blurred vision, dry eyes, tired eyes.
(Vision Council, 2025)

Each additional hour of daily screen time is associated with 21% higher odds of myopia in children, from a pooled analysis of 45 studies and 335,000 participants.
(JAMA Network Open, 2025)

Dry eye syndrome in children has more than doubled since the pandemic, rising from 6–10% to 20–25%.
(Venugopal and Bhaskar, 2025)

💡 This is the core research insight

We are not designed to stare at screens all day. Close screen work forces the eyes to lock into a fixed focal point for hours, drops blink rate from 15 times per minute to as low as 5, and exposes the retina to sustained blue-spectrum light. The brain works harder than it needs to. The result is not just tired eyes — it is reduced focus, slower decisions, and lower performance. As Dr Appelbaum says: imagine what becomes possible when the right signals come in through the eyes.

The bigger picture

Vision is the brain's primary input channel. When the right conditions are in place — filtering the light, managing the environment — performance does not just improve. It operates at its actual ceiling. Dr Appelbaum has built his career on that principle. It applies to every screen user reading this.