Is VR Bad for Your Eyes?
Does strapping a screen over your eyes and then blasting photons at them for hours cause damage? Moms always said sitting close to the TV is a bad idea, but is there evidence that VR is bad for your eyes?
People do get sick in VR from something known as motion sickness. Individual people have different levels of sensitivity to it, but it usually happens because motion information from your eyes disagrees with those from your other senses. That disorientation can make you feel nausea and unstable on your feet.
A large part of modern VR development has been about making motion sickness a non-issue. Modern VR headsets and the computers that drive them to offer extremely low-latency visuals. Usually less than 20 milliseconds from where you move to where your eyes see that movement in VR. That said, it’s important not to confuse VR-induced motion sickness with eye problems that are purportedly caused by VR.
In 2020, a VR developer named Dani Bittman posted a story to Twitter claiming that extended VR use may have damaged their eyesight. The BBC reported on this claim, interviewing a representative from the Association of Optometrists who reiterated that there’s currently no evidence that VR headsets cause permanent damage to eyesight. Just the same type of transient eyestrain that all computer screens cause when we focus on them for too long.
That doesn’t mean it’s not possible. It just means that the right studies haven’t been done yet and not enough time has passed to gather data. In the absence of evidence, it’s important not to fill the blanks with assumptions!
VR headset makers generally advise that young children should not use their headsets and you’ll find that most optometrist associations echo that warning. This isn’t
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