Eating While Staring at Your Phone: Blink Rate Drops, Eyes Suffer
Blinking decreases to 15-20 times per minute when looking at a screen. Claims of skull damage from eating while using a phone lack supporting studies.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Eating While Staring at the Screen: Your Eyes Pay for Reduced Blinking
How many times do you blink while eating? If you have your phone, television, or laptop in front of you, it's significantly less than your eyes need. Normal blinking occurs between 15 and 20 times per minute; it decreases in front of a screen, leading to dry eyes. This much is generally accepted.
What Happens to Blinking When You Look at a Screen
The drop in blinking frequency when facing screens is the only aspect of this issue with some backing. Another user suggests, as a recollection without cited studies, that consciously blinking might activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the branch of the nervous system that relaxes the body. The underlying idea: it's not just about dry eyes, but also nervous tone. And this habit, according to that idea, can be trained.
Claims That Lack Any Support
The rest is another matter. One user claims that chewing and looking at the same time subjects the skull to enormous pressure, tenses the muscles, and overloads ocular blood flow. It's essentially a case of 'because I say so': there are no cited studies to support it, and the obvious question—how many years does it take to notice—remains unanswered. The notion that television was promoted from the 1960s onwards to make you stare at screens and eat greedily falls into the realm of suspicion without proof. Anyone would call it conspiracy theory.
Eating while looking at your food has no sponsor or campaign behind it. Suspicious, to say the least.
How many times do you blink while eating? If you have your phone, television, or laptop in front of you, it's significantly less than your eyes need. Normal blinking occurs between 15 and 20 times per minute; it decreases in front of a screen, leading to dry eyes. This much is generally accepted.
What Happens to Blinking When You Look at a Screen
The drop in blinking frequency when facing screens is the only aspect of this issue with some backing. Another user suggests, as a recollection without cited studies, that consciously blinking might activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the branch of the nervous system that relaxes the body. The underlying idea: it's not just about dry eyes, but also nervous tone. And this habit, according to that idea, can be trained.
Claims That Lack Any Support
The rest is another matter. One user claims that chewing and looking at the same time subjects the skull to enormous pressure, tenses the muscles, and overloads ocular blood flow. It's essentially a case of 'because I say so': there are no cited studies to support it, and the obvious question—how many years does it take to notice—remains unanswered. The notion that television was promoted from the 1960s onwards to make you stare at screens and eat greedily falls into the realm of suspicion without proof. Anyone would call it conspiracy theory.
Eating while looking at your food has no sponsor or campaign behind it. Suspicious, to say the least.
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (18 replies).
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