More near-sightedness vs. 4 decades ago

[Jolt]

Eyes work via muscles. Just like the rest of the body, eye muscles strengthen the more you use them.

If you use your muscles (eyes) more for close work, they will get very strong at close work. If you use them more for distance work, they will get very strong at distance work.

Yet another case of muscle imbalance caused/exacerbated by our modern lifestyles...

[Crankin]

When I first started needing glasses for distance (I think I was 8), I went to a doctor who didn't believe that you should wear your glasses except for when you "really" needed to see. He also undercorrected my prescription. I think he was ascribing to the philosophy that your eyesight got used to whatever prescription you had, and that made your eyesight get worse. In retrospect, all it did was make me go around in a blur for about 10-12 years. I only wore my glasses to see the board in school and when I was driving. Finally, in my senior year of college, I started wearing them all of the time. I couldn't believe how much I had missed by going around in a blur. My eyesight got progressively worse, anyway. Of course, vanity got to me a year or so after I graduated, and I started wearing contacts.

[Maxxxie]

There's no doubt in my mind that my eyesight has worsened over time due to sitting in front of a computer for the last 32 years. But it was made much worse when I was hit by a bout of iritis when I was 16.

After years of denial about my shocking eyesight, I finally got glasses a couple years ago. I couldn't believe the difference. I could actually read at a distance of more than 20cm! I think that first day I wore a grin from ear to ear!

Max