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As a child, you likely heard warnings from your parents about sitting too close to the TV and potentially harming your eyesight. This piece of advice can be categorized as a myth, much like the one about your face freezing if you make certain expressions. In reality, being near the TV doesn't harm your eyes. So why do parents still give this warning? It stems from a brief period in the late 1960s when sitting too close to certain TVs could have been harmful—specifically, if you owned a General Electric TV.
In 1967, General Electric alerted the public that some of their color TVs were emitting dangerously high levels of x-rays due to a ‘factory error.’ Health experts at the time estimated that these faulty TVs were releasing radiation up to 100,000 times the acceptable limit. They advised keeping children at a safe distance. However, as long as you kept a few feet away and didn’t watch TV for extended periods up close, it was unlikely to cause harm. General Electric issued a recall to fix the issue by installing leaded glass shields, making close-up TV watching safe once more.
"It's not a tale from old wives; it's a tale from old technology," said Dr. Norman Saffra, chairman of ophthalmology at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, to the New York Times. "Given the world our grandmothers grew up in, this advice was actually fitting at the time,"
At worst, sitting too close to the TV today will cause a headache and possible eyestrain. This can often be an issue for children, who tend to watch TV while lying on the floor. Looking upward at the screen in this position results in more eyestrain than looking directly at it or downward. (The same is true for computer monitors.) Eyestrain can also occur if there's a significant difference between the screen's light level and the surrounding environment's lighting. Fortunately, eyestrain isn't permanent and can be easily remedied—simply take a break from screen time.
