What Is Blue Light?
Sunlight, or “white light” has a wide color spectrum. This visible light is made up of red, orange, yellow, green, and blue light. These types of light range in wavelength and energy. Blue light has the most energy of the visible lights, due to its shorter wavelengths. Blue light is very prevalent and makes up one third of the visible light around us.
The Problem:
Blue light, as I mentioned above, makes up one third of all visible light. The problem with this is that our eyes are pretty bad at blocking blue light! While our cornea and lens are good at blocking many other types of light, blue light goes right on through to the retina, which is at the very back of our eyes. Having the light reach the retina can cause degeneration of important cells, which can eventually lead to an eye disease called macular degeneration, and ultimately permanent vision loss.
To make matters worse we are being exposed to blue light in much more than nature. We constantly use technology like smartphones, computers, and tablets, which have blue light in their screens. We can get digital eye strain from looking at these displays for too long. Spending time staring at screens exposes our eyes to heavy doses of blue light, which as shown above is extremely harmful to our vision.
The Solution:
It is important to protect our eyes from the harmful effects of blue light. While it is ideal to avoid blue light by lessening our exposure through technology, it can be hard to go about our daily lives avoiding screens. Computer glasses, which are slightly tinted to block blue light, are a great option for those who need to spend time on their phones and computer but want to protect their eyes. They allow the wearer to spend time looking at screens without experiencing eye fatigue or discomfort, or at least diminishing the effects of blue light. If you spend a lot of time on your phone, computer, or tablet for business or school, lenses with blue light protection are the thing for you! Good Looks Eyewear offers computer glasses with digital blue light blocking lenses at our Pittsburgh and Cranberry locations.