READING DOES NOT CAUSE MYOPIA!

For anyone that is both near-sighted and an enthusiastic reader, you cannot have escaped the assumption, made personally or by those around you that heavy reading causes near sightedness. There is an excellent article in the November 7, 2009 edition of New Scientist, Generation Specs by Nora Schultz, which provides an excellent summary of the state of research on myopia. The good news for parents trying to raise readers but concerned about myopia is that reading does not cause myopia: that is an old wives tale.

Despite the many decades-long interest of individuals and governments in figuring why some countries have high incidences of myopia and others low, there has been surprisingly little progress. Recent years have seen more and more light shed on the issue though, and the article is a fascinating tale of the scientific method and eventual progress.