You can replicate those light levels indoors, if you're bloody minded enough to do so. It's somewhat expensive but for a tech-enabled crowd not too difficult.
You need about 10x to 100x the lighting most people are satisfied with indoors, and you need to turn it on whenever you're in the room and leave it on between sunrise and sunset. This is easiest with timers and automation.
The most important thing about all of this is to realize that children NEED outdoor recess sometime between the hours of 10am and 2pm every day. They don't have to be directly exposed to the sun, but they need to be in an environment with >1000 lux, more is generally better, for a number of hours. This will prevent their growing eyes from continuing to grow indefinitely.
We know this because there was an intervention in Taiwan, which has extremely high myopia levels in children (80%+ last I heard), and it dropped myopia from ~80% to ~35% in the intervention group. That's an astounding effectiveness for something free.
The only thing that makes me hesitant is the extreme unpleasantness of direct high brightness artificial light. I wonder if an indirect lighting setup of similar brightness could be as effective.
This guy has a pretty compelling version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bqBsHSwPgw
If you look at his scatter pane, that's where I would go. There are companies that sell similar lights retail, but they're perhaps 3x as expensive.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29371008/
https://reviewofmm.com/light-as-a-tool-for-myopia-control/
I can't find the site that I read a while ago, it was very similar to the myticker.com site that was posted the other day for heart disease but focused on myopia.
I also found this Guardian article from a Google search: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/01/shortsighted-t...
Also... 100x the lighting indoors strikes me as quite difficult? Do you have any examples of a realistic setup?
I really like this video for an example of how to make proper scattering effect, but you can buy similar materials that are more durable and lighter, for in e.g. a drop ceiling:
As long as you get a few hours outdoors most days during childhood, it doesn't really matter (from the perspective of myopia prevention) if you spend your indoor time in front of a screen or not. And if you don't get that outdoor time, avoiding screens won't save you from myopia. Screens are not really relevant here except to the extent that they encourage children to spend less time outside. You could just as easily blame HVAC or other conveniences of modern homes that make it nicer to stay inside.
Here is an example one; there are likely dozens available.
Study with 65 citations: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7607527/
Pop science article with more context: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/nearsight... (https://archive.is/OeuC3)
I did nerdy kid stuff like read lots of books and use computer screens (uncommon back then, I'm 52)... but I also played outdoors for hours nearly every single day.
Ended up with vision at -6.00 by the time I was a young teenager (don't remember the age it started to slide that way but would estimate around 7-8 or so). Hasn't gotten any worse (or better) since then.
My eye doctor said it was my eyes optimizing for what they do the most. And that makes sense, I have no eye strain using a computer.
Interestingly my vision is better in the summer, and when I take holidays during the summer and spent time away from the computer my eyes essentially fix themselves. It takes a couple months back behind a screen to need my glasses again.
Are you conflating retina with eyeball? In some/many cases, it’s the length of the eyeball being too long for correct focus on the retina. The retina doesn’t keep growing and cause myopia.
I had an incredible childhood with building hidden dwellings in the woods, unsupervised fires and bicycle journeys, football, building ice castles etc, swimming and martial arts lessons. My parents even limited my TV time to 2h a day.
But I still had —1 myopia for every grade until 7th.
My analysis is that by that time I got into reading books - both science and fantasy, and then boom my eyesight was fucked.
Thank god for LASIK.
When I became a heavy reader I speedran long sighted to short sighted. I think 4th grade I got my long sighted diagnosis. 5th grade I started lifting heavier books. By the end of 7th I had more or less the prescription for Myopia I have now.
We do need studies on if/why/how myopia reduction works for some people.
However, we already know a guaranteed way to increase myopia:
1. Wear corrective lens for 20/20 vision for distant objects, e.g. driver license vision test.
2. Keep wearing distance lens for closeup, e.g. phone at 12".
3. Keep wearing distance lens for near work, e.g. book or laptop at 24".
4. Keep wearing distance lens for intermediate, e.g. monitor at 36".
5. Eye adapts (more myopia) to get 20/20 vision at daily focusing distance, e.g. work laptop.
6. Optometrist measures that distance correction with lens is now worse than 20/20.
7. Optometrist increases distance correction to get back to 20/20, for legal (e.g. driving) compliance.
8. Go to Step 1.
Low ambient lighting and dark mode for work will increase pupil dilation and reduce focus. Better to match monitor brightness with natural ambient light levels.
Vision therapists are better at personalized treatment, https://locate.covd.org
It's worth trying to reduce myopia, if only to reduce the thickness/weight of glasses, https://hn.algolia.com/?query=walterbell%20myopia&sort=byDat...
Ask optician to customize the intermediate/computer glasses for your work posture, e.g. looking straight ahead (monitor) or down (laptop).
For those with more time than money, learn from opticians at https://www.optiboard.com/forums/ before ordering online.
your prescription - (100 / desired distance in cm).
As a matter of fact I'm using glasses I bought this way right now. I actually find these even more comfortable than my full degree glasses for all-day use too, in terms of eye strain.
I feel it's ridiculous that the medical industry thinks I need to wear glasses that are powerful enough to focus an image of a mountain 100 kms away all day, when my average focus distance throughout the day is probably less than one meter.
These reduced degree glasses are called differentials. If you want to go into the rabbit hole of fixing your myopia, start here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPIGDSY_xBs
Disclaimer: When driving, you have to obviously wear your full prescription glasses.
You can also order 0.75 diopter glasses on Amazon that work real well.
Most of my professional life has been spent staring at screens, usually in darkened rooms, so I have no idea why my sight is still good.
It's one of the more annoying things about getting older, if you didn't need glasses before sometime in your 40's.
Vision therapy: https://raygottlieb.com/presbyopia
Expensive progressive glasses have neurological impact, not just optical. Better to use separate distance and reading glasses which manipulate only optics, and provide the brain with a physical signal of "mode" change.
Viture glasses ship with adjustable myopia optical correction to -5.00D (no cylinder), or they have an optional frame for custom prescriptions.
Most are in fact measured in feet, and only quite a few at that. Still better than being measured in centimeters however.