VR headsets have lenses, so (AFAIK) your eyes should focus farther away and create less strain than a small TV. Or a phone.
this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2026
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I can confirm, I'm shortsighted and I have to wear glasses in VR or I can't see.
Don't they have the option to adjust the focus?
Some have replaceable lenses.
You might be thinking about IPD (Inter Pupillary Distance) adjustment. You'll still need a separate pair of lenses if you're near or far-sighted unfortunately
Same. It sucks since my eyes keep getting worse so I have to buy new lenses every year.
I can just wear my regular glasses under the VR, allowing me to use regular lenses
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VR headsets, 3D TVs, and 3D movies all have the same issue as far as strain is concerned.
Our brains expect our eyes to focus on what they're pointing at. If your eyes are pointing at something nearby, we focus near. If we're pointing at something far away, we focus far.
All the various 3D solutions have a fixed distance and fake the 3D by having each eye get a slightly different angle on the image. The mismatch between where our eyes are pointing and where they are focused can cause problems.
Until 3D reaches the level of a Star Trek Holodeck, it's going to cause trouble. Ok for a short time, but you wouldn't want to spend all day doing it.
(this is all me paraphrasing what my eye doctor wife told me, so don't expect me to know any more about it)
As a gamer with occupational myopia; I was told by my eye doctor there was no solution. I needed glasses, and I got a prescription for my next driving test.
Regular VR with it's fixed-distance focus has actually reversed my myopia (which my doctor said was impossible) and all without having to actually go outside and look at clouds and stuff.
Interesting.
One of the things my wife did was vision training. She had a computer with VR glasses that people would use to exercise their binocular vision to help them keep their eyes aligned correctly.
Now, that's not fixing the myopia, but if the muscles that point your eyes aren't working well, they'll spasm, and you won't be able to focus.
That is another point my wife mentioned when we were talking about it. People think they can't see because they can't focus, but they really can't focus because they are working so hard to keep their eyes aligned properly that the muscles spasm. So, she could "fix the myopia" by fixing the binocular vision problem.
It wouldn't surprise me to hear that a doctor said it wasn't possible, because my wife would encounter patients on both ends of the spectrum: some who were told VT didn't work and they had to buy glasses, and others who were told VT was the solution and they had to do dozens of sessions costing many hundreds of dollars.
My wife would charge them for a couple training sessions in person so they knew what to do, then let them do the exercises at home (obviously not using VR at home).
Part of my wife's problem is she was ethical. In the last full year she worked before going on disability, her total take home (as the owner) was around $6k.
All the various 3D solutions have a fixed distance and fake the 3D by having each eye get a slightly different angle on the image.
3D movies in the past maybe, but rendering for a VR headset isn't just doing exactly what the engine normally does and then have the lenses do the focusing. They take into consideration the distortion that would happen based on the distance an object is rendered at.
That's why it takes a powerful GPU. They're basically rendering it twice in a much more complex way with geometries that vary in real time based on intended perceived distance.
I hate VR, and I don't own a headset, but it at least solves one of the issues in the old 3D.
The strain is more from the bright light being focused from one direction rather than equal lighting in the full FOV, as well as the perception of motion that isn't being experienced by the rest of the body.
3D movies of the past were filmed fixed stereoscopic; not sure why they're referring to 3D films as βfakedβ.
Whatever the case, 3D films in VR are a real experience, much better than 3D in the theaters.
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Yeah but what if it's possible to neurologically train yourself out of that focusing behaviour?
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Tvs used to be made out of particle accelerators though.
weβve lost our way...
In fairness, CRTs could emit a lot of UV and some xrays (particularly older models or ones with degraded screens)
that explains my sterility. i always watched with my balls glued to the screen
I mean is there any other way?
Only if you Australian, mate.
/shitty conspiracy theory
...or was the constant exposure from X-rays keeping all of our cancer at bay. And with the removal of that lifesaving treatment, we're all rapidly being overcome by our uncheck cancer.
Look at the data and see when LCD TVs first entered the American consumer market. With the removal of CRTs, our cancer rates exploded!! Coincidence?! (yes its just a coincidence)
This looks like itβs not adjusted for population size so itβs basically just showing population growth.
I'd also assume better awareness, and screening procedures, much like audhd spectrum folks.
and all the plastic/petro/forever chemicals building up in our ecosystems/bodies, maybe
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If we go into detail, VR headsets also use thick lenses and optically the screens are like 2 meters away.
Yeah was gonna say, the don't sit too close thing was about CRTs, basically every other display technology is not harmful in this way
Yeah, even if they didn't weight too much, you wouldn't strap a CRT or 2 to your face due to the various emissions.
Let your kids sit as close to the 80" LED as they want, as long as they aren't blocking your view. ;)
CRT Vs. LED They were pretty scared of the high voltage running through CRT TVs. They also thought they emitted x-rays.
CRTs have something called an electron gun inside aimed at the back of the screen TBF. It's not that crazy to think that the giant glass tube that makes a buzzing sound and produces tangible static electricity aimed directly at your face might be harmful, especially when the technology was new.
Especially considering the worlds stance on safety. Standards are written in blood
Also they were heavy enough to kill you.
Definitely a reason to fear them.
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90s/00s parents: donβt talk to strangers on the internet
2020s parents: my totally real Australian boyfriend says chemtrails turn the frogs gay.
All these people debating screen distance and not one smartass comment about the screen on the outside of the headset
Apple vision prototype.
90's parents: you'll ruin your eyes reading in the dark
30 years later me: starting presbyopia, i'll bet they thought because bright light narrowed their iris and cleared up their vision, that I needed bright light to see.
Parenting pre internet was just a big collecting of whatever in the hell aunt Midge thought was a good idea to spread around.
I mean, we did have books and stuff, but yeah
My kid spends hours playing video games with the keyboard and mouse behind his 36 inch monitor with his face inches from the screen.
CRTs were actually "better" for your eyes, if i recall the research.
Yes and no, it depends on what it is and what you are doing.
Focusing on close objects like displays and even books for long periods of time can cause you to lose sharpness in your eyes against far reaching objects. Hence why corrective eye glasses were often associated with those who spent a lot of time reading or studying in universities.
However, VR and especially AR glasses project the image at a certain focal length that makes the object appear further away, causing your eyes to contract accordingly like you were actually focusing on a real object 10 feet away.
That being said, 10 feet only gives you the same effect as sitting far from the TV. They really should try bumping it to 50-100 feet so that it really shows up like a giant projector screen in the distance.
Conversely, you should spend time touching grass and looking into the distance at infinity so that your eyes keep their dynamic range of focus, especially if you spend all day working on a PC monitor that's probably less than a yard/meter from your face/
Isn't there something about your eyes focusing further away stereoscopically, but individually they are focusing closer? Like a single lense doing a macro focus on an up close image, rather than two cameras adjusting their angle to make their images line up for an object far away.
There's a word for this but I can't think of it right now.
Anywho, I thought focusing up close was still bad for your eyes in the long term?
First time I am mad at a YES, BUT, because it is very far from accurate.
The "dont sit close to the TV," thing is objectively truth and is even worse today.
I used screens a lot growing up, including a laptop and various portable games like the Gameboy and PSP
This led to my eyes slowly developing the need for prism on my lenses, because they over-correct now focusing on close objects.
Nowadays smart phones are this problem but way worse too, if you sit in the dark holding it way too close, especially with glasses on, you are slowly deteriorating your eye muscles.
Unless you exercise them of course, every 20-30min. But most people dont do that.
I now am having to do constant daily exercises to slowly undo my prism, a year and a half ago I had a prism of 5.0 on each eye, this month I finally got it down to 2.5, which is solid progress!
The βdont sit close to the TV,β thing is objectively truth and is even worse today
It's not objective if you're only citing personal experience, though. I've been sitting up close to monitors for almost 30 years now, and my sight is as good as it ever was, except for my left eye seeing slightly worse from that one time I actually did go outside and some dumb kid threw a brick in my face.
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