It's just that one retina was adapted to light, and the other to dark. But around the same time, she'd bought an iPhone. It had been going on for about a year, ever since she'd injured her cornea.

The other patient, who was in her 40s, had similar problems when she woke up in the morning before sunrise and checked the news on her smartphone before sitting up. Her left eye was often covered by the pillow. She'd lie on her left side and look at the screen primarily with her right eye. The first patient had a habit of gazing at her smartphone before falling asleep. 'They were looking at their smartphones and they just happened to have one eye covered because they were lying in bed,' says Omar Mahroo, an ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and an author on the letter. They're calling the affliction 'transient smartphone 'blindness.' ' It can also signal a compressed optic nerve.īut after further investigation, researchers writing Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine think the problem is much simpler. By gathering and sharing personal data, tech platforms design algorithms to keep us engaged and interested.Vision loss in one eye can be a sign that a person is having a small stroke, which is why one of the women was put on blood thinners and the other got a brain scan. For example, the TikTok algorithm is a recommendation system that shows you content based on your interests and screen activity. Through the use of algorithms, social networks prioritize what content users see based on what they know about users.

Levels, tokens, and awards – which keep gamers playing to achieve the next reward.

Streaks – which encourage users to keep posting or playing to continue the streak.

Tagging – which prompts the person tagged to check their social media feed.

Some persuasive design techniques include:

Tech companies also use persuasive design techniques to keep people scrolling, checking feeds, and playing games. The more time we spend on screens, the more money tech companies make from advertisers who use their platforms to sell products. To be profitable, social media, video games, and other apps need eyes on their platforms, including kids’ eyes. So, Chapter One of The Phone Book grew into Why Tech Companies Want You Staring at Your Screen. Chapter 1: Why Tech Companies Want You Staring at Your Screen

Why does staring in the dark get darker