The average American should limit the amount of time they spend looking at screens.

Americans  on average spend about eleven hours a day staring at a screen. This is extremely harmful for your eyes and causes you to have eyestrain.

According to The Official Blog of Children’s Hospital of Orange County, “Excessive screen time can also lead to “Computer Vision Syndrome” which is a combination of headaches, eye strain, fatigue, blurry vision for distance, and excessive dry eyes.” This shows that staring at a screen for a long time can cause you to have blurry vision and requires you to get glasses.

There is a rule that you can use to help protect your eyes from getting Computer Vision Syndrome, for every twenty minutes you stare at a computer look away for twenty seconds at something 20 feet away. Your eyes can become dry from excessively staring at a computer screen which makes them more susceptible to infection.  That infection could evolve into a condition that later takes your eyesight.

“I think that screens can hurt your eyes if you look at them for a long time so as long that you don’t do that it’s not that bad., ” said Cotter student Dylan Bannon.

“I think little kids screen time should be limited because they should learn to go outside and play so they aren’t as dependent on phones and screens once they’re older. Since our generation grew up with phones starting to become popular it was something that everyone wanted but weren’t aware that it was something that should have a controlled time limit,” Abi Trocisnki said.

“In my opinion I believe that children should be limited on what kind of technology they are allowed to access and for how long because excessive screen time can cause changes and damage in an undeveloped brain. However, kids should be allowed to do things such as play video games because those can often be very educational and I found them to be a very good part of my childhood,” Linnea McColl said.

The message is clear, get away from the screen and do your eyes and brain a favor.