1. How does screen time affect eyesight?
By: Jovan Loh, Sugam Dhakal and Rui Yi Yong

2. Introduction and Rationale
In today’s age of technological innovation, many people in the world spend copious amounts of time each day, staring into their screens. Many people believe that in order to preserve their eye sight, there is a need to limit their amount of screen time, but is this actually true?
Rationale
Many of us have been told by our parents or read from an article that increased screen time will lead to a decrease in eye sight. However as new advances cause us to increase our screen time, we decided to see whether this statement is founded on any truth.

3. Objective Hypothesis Research Questions
Our objective is to identify whether there is a relationship between screen time and eyesight and if so, to investigate the extent and influence of the cause on the effect.
Hypothesis
Our hypothesis is that the amount of screen an individual has, will have a negative effect on their eyesight, based on the fact that it is a widespread statement among both the layman and “experts of the area”.
Research Questions
Is there a pattern between those with poor eyesight and their screen time?
If so:
Is there a certain amount of screen time which dramatically decreases eyesight?
What is considered a “healthy amount” of screen time?
Does age impact this relationship in anyway?

4. The Survey We created a survey which would collect information on:
Name
Date
Year level
Screen time
Eyesight
After participants had completed the first half of the survey, they were instructed to make their way to the back of the classroom to undertake an eye test.

5. The Eye Test
We created an eye test using PowerPoint and implemented it via a smartboard.
The eye test had 10 different levels of difficulty. As the level of difficulty increased, the font size of each progressing level would decrease by 8.
Each level contained 5 letters, wherein participants were required to record which letters they saw.
Each letter on each level was worth 2 marks, hence culminating in a total of 100 marks. This mark out of 100 would be the percentage we would use to score the participant’s eyesight.

6. Data Collection
We created a survey which was handed out to participants of varying year groups, ethnicities and genders.
After participants filled out information on year level, screen time, and other normalities, we performed an eye test.
The surveys were then collected and the eye tests were marked as a measure of the participant’s eyesight.
Finally, the data was collated and compiled into a table to be filtered, graphed and analysed.

7. Central tendency and spread
Eyesight (%)
Screen Time (Hours/Week)
Average
Mode 
Median 
Range
Year 7 92
100 68
Year 8 82 90 80
Year 9 95 62
Year 11 76 65
Overall 88 98
Average
Mode 
Median
Range
Year 7 28 23 62
Year 8 32 35 30 55
Year 9 39 56
80.2
Year 11 41 40
Overall

8. Scatter Plot: Overall

9. Scatter plot: individual years

10. On the surface
From the data we collected and graphed, it is safe to conclude that an increased amount of screen time will lead to the deterioration of eyesight.
Some other interesting observations include:
As the year level of participants increased, the average amount of screen time likewise heightened
As the year level of participants increased, the average score for eyesight essentially diminishes

11. Interpretation
Although we found that the overarching data collected pointed to the fact that increasing your screen time will lead to the depreciation of your eye sight, it is interesting to note that the graph which only focused on the group of year sevens had an opposite trend line to that of all the other graphs. In order to reconcile this discrepancy, there are 2 possible explanations. The first explanation is that as the year level escalates, the amount of screen time similarly increases. Hence, due to this gradual increase in screen time, a threshold, in the amount of screen hours possessing an actual efficacy in impacting eyesight, may have been reached by many more participants, therefore creating a gradual decrease in trend line.

12. Interpretation
The second explanation is that the effect of screen time on eyesight is not one of instant succession, where the amount of screen time will immediately impact your eyesight, but rather it may be a delayed process wherein the effect of screen time is only seen in eyesight after a certain period of time. This would then explain the ascending trend line in the graph of the year seven group, as this is the year that they enter high school. Meaning that the majority of parents would start permitting their children to have an increased screen time around this period, thus the effects may not yet be evident.

13. Limitations and future direction
Due to the fact that we did not have enough time nor resources to test each participant individually and accurately, some errors may include:
Participants copying of another participant’s sheet
Participants were not all standing in exact same distance away from the smart board due to size limitations
We did not get participants with contacts to remove them due to hygiene reasons, caused by limited resources and time
We did not have an extremely large sample size
In order to investigate this topic further and more accurately, some plausible directions for the future could be:
Increasing the sample size of participants in each group
Increasing the amount of year groups being surveyed
Conducting a proper comprehensive eye test on each individual in order to obtain a thoroughly accurate score on the individual’s eyesight
Surveying the eyesight of the participant’s parents, in order to make observations on whether genes are the weightiest factor

14. Conclusion
From the results of our investigation, we can conclude that the amount of screen time does have a negative effect on eyesight. Our investigation aligns with our hypothesis which states that the amount of screen time an individual has, results in a negative effect on their eyesight. However during the course of this investigation, some interesting observation about age and eyesight were also made. Though it has been observed that screen time has an effect on eyesight, in order to determine the magnitude of this effect, further research into this field is required.