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Total eclipse path vs. Google search volume for "eyes hurt" (files.catbox.moe)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/dataisbeautiful@lemmy.world
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https://bsky.app/profile/luckytran.bsky.social/post/3kps32vsbps2y

https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1778090750107853015/

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[–] 30 points 2 years ago (3 children)

How do you even look long enough to damage your eyes? I used a projector box and did like a 1/10th second glance with by bare eyes just to get a sense of it and even that was very uncomfortable, and left an afterimage for about 5 minutes.

I don't doubt that people can be very dumb, but I'm surprised at the dedication people put into ruining their eyes.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I dunno man, I've got a coworker that swears looking at the sun is healthy "because that's how you get vitamin D"... Says he looks directly at the sun every day. I have no idea how he doesn't have vision problems, I just mostly assume he's lying.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago*

    He’s probably just blind in the very center of his vision and doesn’t realize it, because he sees the brightness around the blind spot, and the brain is pretty good at ‘filling in’ missing information.

    I saw a video a while ago about a helicopter EMT pilot who got hit with a laser while flying, and he’s blind right in the center of his vision. He doesn’t notice it most days, but he’ll catch himself looking ‘around’ things he’s focusing on to actually see them.

    Your colleague probably doesn’t look long enough that he feels the ache/burn of the UV rays, or if he does, he assumes it’s something mystical, like the eyes producing vitamin D.

    Boy is he gonna be surprised when he no longer can see the sun.

    Unless he was pulling your leg. That’s always an option.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago*

    Little visible light dilates pupil. But there's still plenty of UV that burns the receptors. The back of your eye doesn't have melanin like your skin to absorb it or relevant pain recptors to notice the damage.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago*

    It takes a second to ruin your eyes in some way, but some people apparently don't feel pain and can somehow do it for several seconds. There's actually a report of a woman back in 2016 who looked at the sun for 6 seconds and later had blurry vision and a black spot in her vision.

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