Does reading in low light hurt your eyes?
[ 2006-08-07 11:20 ]
在昏暗的光線下看書會損害眼睛嗎？通常的說法是：是，會損傷眼睛。但是專家們可不這么認為。他們認為，在昏暗的光線下看書，僅是導致眼疲勞而已。
Most experts agree that reading in low light does not damage your eyes.
However, it can cause eye strain.
When the room light is low, your eye adjusts in several ways. First, the
rod and cone cells on the retina begin to produce more
light-sensitive chemicals. These light-sensitive chemicals are the first step in
detecting the light, converting it to an electrical signal and transmitting that
electrical signal to the brain. Second, the iris muscles relax, which causes the
opening of your eye, the pupil, to
become very large. This allows your eye to collect as much light as possible.
Finally, the nerve cells in the retina adapt so that they can work in low light.
These three changes take about 20 minutes to 2 hours, but they increase your
sensitivity to low light by about 10,000 times.
When you read, your eye
must be able to focus an image of the words onto your retina. To do this, the
iris, as well as the muscles that
control the shape of your lens, must contract to keep the focused image on the
retina. If you read in low light, your visual muscles get mixed signals: Relax
to collect more light, but at the same time, contract to maintain the focused
image. When that object is poorly lit, focusing becomes even more difficult
because the contrast between the words and the page is not as great, which
decreases the eye's ability to distinguish visual detail. Your eyes have to work
harder to separate the words from the page, which strains your eye muscles. So
your eye muscles will ache, much as your arm muscles and leg muscles become sore
after strenuous exercise.
When your eyes are working this hard for a
long period of time, the strain may cause a number of physical effects. Symptoms
of eye strain include sore eyeballs, headaches, back and neck aches, drooping
eyelids and blurred vision. Because you often don't blink enough when focusing
on a single object, you may also experience uncomfortable dryness in your eyes.
None of this damages your eyes, and all of it eventually goes away after you
stop straining them.
If you are comfortable reading with a flashlight
(or other low light) and don't experience any of the above symptoms of eye
strain, it's probably fine for you to read this way. It's certainly easier on
your eyes to read in good light, however. You can also avoid eye strain when
you're reading by blinking frequently and taking a moment to focus on something
out the window or across the room every 15 to 30 minutes.
eye strain:
視疲勞
rod：視網膜桿
cone：視網膜錐形體
retina：視網膜
pupil：瞳孔
iris：虹膜
（英語點津 Annabel 編輯） |
