Protect your wallets, not your eyes

Blue light glasses are a waste of money

By Cesar Espinosa

Reporter

As this pandemic continues to affect our everyday lives, more people are beginning to rely on technology for work, school and communication. So, in a world where “money is king,” eyewear companies have devised an impertinent campaign to empty consumers' wallets by gaining leverage over this new technology reliant world we live in.

Eyewear companies have created blue light glasses, a pair of glasses that claims to fix a plethora of eye related issues by filtering out light emitted from smartphones, laptops, and other pieces of technology.

Scientific results over whether these glasses actually resolve eye problems are very mixed, however one thing is certain, these glasses are a complete waste of your money.

This whole “reduce eye strain” nonsense is obviously a simple scare tactic used by these big eyewear companies to convince you to buy their useless product. The whole thing sounds like something out of an 80s’ SCI-FI horror flick. Seriously? Harmful blue rays emitted from your device that lead to eye damage? If blue light is that much of an issue for you, simply reduce the amount of time you spend on your device.

But, for some people, reducing the amount of time spent on your device is not an option. Work and school require a lot of screen time now that in-person activities are off the table. If this is the case, you don’t have to waste money on a $30 piece of junk. There’s another (completely free) alternative that works just fine: Night shift mode.

Night shift is a mode you can use on all IOS devices. It places a warm yellow filter over your screen which serves the exact same purpose as those blue light glasses. And best of all, it costs you absolutely nothing. It can be located in your settings under the “Display & Brightness” tab. You can activate it manually, or set a time you’d like it to automatically activate. You can even adjust the strength of the yellow filter to fit your personal needs.

Eye care (as well as health in general) is very important, but you shouldn’t give in to the temptation of companies trying to make a quick buck at the price of your health.