About Harmful Blue Light
Artificial Blue Light is becoming more and more prevalent around the most vulnerable eyes, our children’s. To help protect our children from tired eyes, headaches, blurry vision, and perhaps vision damage, along with aiding in better, healthier sleep patterns, anti-blue lenses, like those found in our Little Fallons frames, block harmful blue light that is emitted from digital devices making it safer for our children to enjoy their screen time.
What is blue light?
Sunlight is made up of a visual color spectrum. Each color on the spectrum has a different energy and wavelength. Blue rays, at the far end of the spectrum, have shorter wavelengths and more energy. In addition to natural sunlight, we are exposed to an artificial form of blue light through flat screen LED televisions, computer monitors, smart phones, and tablet screens.
As technology becomes more and more prevalent in our homes, schools, and communities our children grow up in, it seems we can’t go one day without staring at screen. The vast increase in artificial blue light we are exposed to on a daily basis isn’t just a problem for adults anymore (the primary users of screens earlier this century), now the problem is seriously affecting children and their health.
Almost 78% of US children use a computer or tablet in school and most interact with screens for an average of 6 hours a day. That increased blue light exposure can lead to headaches, tired eyes, and/or blurred vision.
Though blue light is natural in the world, emitted from the sun, digital screens emit an artificial blue light even after the sun goes down, when our bodies naturally shouldn't encounter it. These instances of artificial blue light exposure are especially concerning for children who stare directly into devices at a very close proximity to their eyes for long periods of time. For young eyes, that can be a big problem because children's eyes absorb more blue light than adults' from digital screens.
Blue light exposure can be especially detrimental during the evening because the blue light tricks the brain into thinking it’s daytime ( a time to be energized and stimulated, sound familiar parents?) and therefore suppressing melatonin secretion. When screen time is finally over, it can take longer for children to adjust to “bed time” leading to a longer time to fall asleep, and overall affecting the amount of hours a child needs to sleep per night for their growing body and minds.
Blue light research is constantly being conducted and we don’t yet know the full effects blue light will have on our young ones' eyes. But, because there is greater and greater concern that prolonged exposure to harmful blue light can lead to vision loss, we at Travis Rae Eyewear want to take every precaution we can to protect our young children's vision for their long lives ahead.
Of course, we recommend that you check with a health professional to verify that blue light blockers are right for your child. Take the precautions that count. Vision is priceless!