Abstract
Purpose :
Near work due to an intensive use of the mobile devices has been proposed as a potential cause of developing myopia among young people. Apps could help users improving their digital habits by limiting the screen time, face-device distance or illuminance. We test the effectiveness of one app to measure and change user’s digital habits, as well as the change of those habits with age.
Methods :
68 healthy subjects were recruited from 22 private optometry clinics, where their spherical equivalent refraction (SER) was measured. Their digital habits were measured at a rate of 1Hz by an Android app (myopia.app, VisionApp Solutions S.L., Murcia, Spain). Data was recorded with the mobiles of the subjects and stored in the cloud. Subjects were divided into three groups: 20 subjects of whom the app warned when the face-device distance was shorter than 300 mm or the illumination lower than 100 lux (26±5 y.o., young biased); 20 subjects who received no warnings from the app (27 ± 4 y.o., young non-biased); and 28 subjects who also received no warnings from the app (48±7 y.o., adult non-biased). It was statistically evaluated the correlation between the digital habits and SER.
Results :
2709 hours (29M of samples) of Big Data were obtained. Average face-device distance and illumination were: 343 ± 32, 307 ± 57, and 339 ± 105 mm; and 650 ± 1000, 450 ± 640 and 530 ± 530 lux for the young-biased, young non-biased and adult non-biased groups, respectively. Significant differences (p=0.004) were found between face-device distances in the young biased and non-biased groups, but not in illuminances within these two groups (p=0.967). Regarding the potential age-related differences between both non-biased groups, no significant differences were found in their face-device distances (p=0.32) nor illuminances (p=0.33). A weak correlation (p > 0.05, R2 < 0.2) between SER and digital habits was found in non-biased young subjects.
Conclusions :
The use of the app with digital habits warnings reduced the proportion of young subjects which used the device closer than 300 mm from 40% to 10%. No statistical change was found in illuminances, nor between young and adults. Very little correlation was found between digital habits and SER. A longitudinal study is needed to really find if there is any. This study illustrates a method to continue the digital habits research based on cloud and mobile apps.
This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 2023.