How Do You Keep Your Eyes Healthy While Reading A Lot?

00:00:00.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:05.280 | Hi, Cal.

00:00:05.880 | I think your reading habits are super inspiring.

00:00:08.720 | And I'm glad to say I've been able to adopt them

00:00:11.760 | in my own life.

00:00:12.680 | I am currently on my fifth book of the month, which

00:00:15.280 | is really satisfying.

00:00:16.880 | But one practical health-related question--

00:00:19.560 | I went to the eye doctor recently.

00:00:21.160 | And the first thing the doctor said was, oh, do you read a lot?

00:00:27.600 | Because it was apparent in the physiology of my eyeballs

00:00:31.280 | that my eyes are pretty strained.

00:00:33.880 | And so I know that you like to read during your breaks

00:00:36.640 | from work, which suggests that you spend a lot of time

00:00:39.480 | reading, both for work and then for pleasure or otherwise.

00:00:44.400 | So how do you keep your eyes healthy while still reading

00:00:48.280 | at such a great clip?

00:00:49.520 | Thanks.

00:00:51.040 | Well, here's the thing.

00:00:53.720 | Even if you're reading five books a month,

00:00:56.080 | the amount of time you're looking at a book

00:00:58.480 | compared to the amount of time you're looking at a computer

00:01:01.000 | screen for your normal job, assuming you're a knowledge

00:01:03.000 | worker type, it's still minuscule.

00:01:06.680 | And the strain of looking at a computer monitor or a phone

00:01:09.960 | is much greater than the strain of looking at a matte-printed

00:01:14.080 | ink on paper.

00:01:16.680 | So partially, I'm going to say, don't worry about reading

00:01:20.640 | is going to be the thing that is going to cause the issues,

00:01:23.060 | because it's probably much more strain the seven hours a day

00:01:25.900 | you probably have to look at computer screens

00:01:27.920 | than it is reading.

00:01:29.360 | That being said, the two rules that help with reading is--

00:01:33.000 | well, actually, let me add a third.

00:01:34.500 | Number one, do it on paper when you can.

00:01:38.040 | Don't do it on your phone.

00:01:39.120 | Don't do it on tablet.

00:01:40.040 | The backlight screen is more straining on your eyes.

00:01:44.640 | I count Kindle as paper, by the way.

00:01:47.280 | It is paper.

00:01:48.760 | The technology in Kindle, just from a physiological

00:01:55.120 | experience of reading, is the same,

00:01:57.480 | because the technology in Kindle is not a screen,

00:02:01.840 | like you would have on a laptop.

00:02:03.760 | It's not pixels that have light go into them.

00:02:06.140 | That's what strains you when you look at a computer,

00:02:08.300 | is you have all this-- it's light.

00:02:09.600 | It's pixels that have light, and the light

00:02:11.340 | is a particular color.

00:02:13.200 | The e-ink technology in a Kindle is actually

00:02:16.080 | a bunch of little disks.

00:02:17.880 | And one side's black, and one side is white, give or take.

00:02:23.560 | And they shock it.

00:02:24.520 | You can put a little bit of electricity to the disk.

00:02:26.680 | You can flip it over.

00:02:27.960 | But once you've take the electricity away,

00:02:29.760 | it's a physical thing.

00:02:31.400 | You're looking at physical little pieces of plastic

00:02:34.760 | that are black on one side and white on the other that

00:02:37.000 | have been arranged, flipped in a pattern that looks like words.

00:02:39.620 | So it's actually, from an eye physiology perspective,

00:02:43.560 | the same as looking at words printed on a piece of paper.

00:02:46.640 | You can put a light on your Kindle like you would on a book,

00:02:50.440 | but you're looking at just a physical surface that

00:02:54.040 | has some black and some white pieces.

00:02:56.400 | So a Kindle is not going to strain your eyes

00:02:58.280 | any more than a book.

00:02:59.520 | Number two, have enough light.

00:03:00.920 | You strain your eyes if you read low light.

00:03:02.720 | And three, use reading glasses if you feel the strain.

00:03:05.680 | Those of us who have lived an intellectual life,

00:03:08.760 | we typically do need reading glasses earlier.

00:03:12.480 | I'm 39, but I still have to--

00:03:14.360 | in low light situations, I have to use reading glasses.

00:03:16.640 | So use reading glasses.

00:03:17.760 | Have lots of light.

00:03:18.520 | Stay away from backlit screens when you read,

00:03:21.560 | and you'll be fine.

00:03:22.360 | But in general, I'm going to say I'm

00:03:24.160 | letting reading off the hook here, because the seven

00:03:26.320 | hours you're on Zoom has got to be worse than the one hour you

00:03:31.360 | spent that day reading and rereading my books, which

00:03:34.600 | I assume, by the way, is what you're doing.

00:03:36.160 | That's what I recommend.

00:03:36.920 | You just go through my books in order,

00:03:38.540 | just a cycle again and again.

00:03:41.200 | All right, let's see here.

00:03:43.680 | Am I old?

00:03:44.240 | You don't wear reading glasses, do you, Jesse?

00:03:46.440 | I don't wear reading glasses, but I got LASIK.

00:03:48.560 | So I used to wear glasses when I drive at night.

00:03:51.960 | But now I don't really have to do that.

00:03:53.560 | Does LASIK work for you?

00:03:54.680 | Yeah, it worked great.

00:03:55.600 | I should do that.

00:03:56.320 | And my father job paid for it.

00:03:59.480 | Here's my question about LASIK.

00:04:03.160 | How do people do without it?

00:04:06.680 | How do people do long-term camping or adventure outdoor

00:04:10.480 | trips or something like this?

00:04:11.680 | I occasionally get invited on these things,

00:04:13.480 | like let's go hike the whatever, Machu Picchu

00:04:16.560 | or something like that.

00:04:17.520 | And how do you do these long trips

00:04:18.840 | if you have contacts or glasses?

00:04:20.240 | It seems like it would be impossible, right?

00:04:22.880 | I guess you could have glasses you could wear.

00:04:24.840 | But anyways, I should do LASIK because I've

00:04:29.240 | thought about that.

00:04:30.080 | I can't do long-term camping trips or this or that

00:04:32.200 | because I wear contacts.

00:04:35.000 | I can't deal with contacts in the woods.

00:04:37.600 | I'm sure a lot of people do those trips

00:04:39.720 | or in the same boat as you.

00:04:40.960 | And they probably haven't figured it out.

00:04:42.120 | So you probably figured that out.

00:04:43.280 | But in terms of getting LASIK, I thought it was great.

00:04:45.240 | And it's seamless.

00:04:46.360 | It's like a 10-minute procedure.

00:04:47.720 | I should do that.

00:04:48.600 | I should do that.

00:04:49.520 | Or wear complicated glasses, like blue plastic,

00:04:53.080 | awesome Warby Parker glasses.

00:04:55.040 | I think that would be--

00:04:55.880 | - Rec specs from back in the day, like NBA games?

00:04:57.920 | - Yeah, I'm gonna wear, who was it that used

00:05:00.520 | to wear the rec specs?

00:05:02.000 | It wasn't Magic Johnson, was it?

00:05:03.280 | It was, someone classically wore those.

00:05:06.480 | - Kareem?

00:05:07.320 | - Kareem, yes.

00:05:08.640 | I'm gonna wear Kareem rec specs on air,

00:05:12.640 | just so people think I'm more athletic.

00:05:14.760 | And a sweatband.

00:05:15.600 | Be good.

00:05:18.960 | - All right, where are we at?

00:05:20.200 | That's four, do we have another call?

00:05:21.840 | - That's all the questions we have for today's show.

00:05:23.760 | - All right, well, excellent.

00:05:25.040 | So we end on a high note.

00:05:26.520 | I'm gonna start wearing rec specs and a sweatband

00:05:30.560 | so that everyone thinks that I am more athletic than I am.

00:05:34.760 | Or complicated blue plastic glasses

00:05:37.160 | so everyone will think I'm smarter.

00:05:38.080 | I can just depend on what I'm trying to go on.

00:05:41.560 | Have you seen, not to go on this thing,

00:05:43.560 | but if you live in a city and you're around 30-year-olds

00:05:47.960 | who are overeducated and aren't beaten down

00:05:50.560 | by having families yet,

00:05:51.520 | there's so much care in glassware and facial hair

00:05:54.480 | at this point that there's an arms race

00:05:57.400 | of who can have the more complicated, weird glasses.

00:06:02.080 | - Yeah, glasses are a big thing.

00:06:04.760 | There's so many different styles.

00:06:05.880 | I see them all the time.

00:06:06.720 | I know what you're talking about.

00:06:07.560 | But what I can't stop thinking about

00:06:08.800 | and I'm laughing about is,

00:06:09.760 | you were talking about Zuckerberg

00:06:11.680 | and his master plan to have everybody

00:06:14.800 | having all these devices and glass.

00:06:17.240 | And I can just see you're already wearing

00:06:19.720 | Rex-Mex going forward.

00:06:21.640 | - Yeah, but this is the technological threshold

00:06:24.600 | that has to be passed for this to be the case

00:06:27.400 | is the glasses have to look good.

00:06:29.520 | All right, so this was the problem with Google Glass

00:06:31.680 | is that if you walked around in those Google Glass,

00:06:34.840 | otherwise very respectable people,

00:06:37.280 | you know, it's an elementary school teacher

00:06:38.840 | on the way back from church,

00:06:40.840 | it just would feel the urge to punch you.

00:06:42.680 | You just see someone with those things on,

00:06:44.000 | you're like, I just wanna knock this guy over.

00:06:46.960 | This is crazy.

00:06:48.080 | You are like a dork goblin and like you should be injured.

00:06:52.120 | So like the technology has, these have to look better,

00:06:54.560 | but we'll cross that.

00:06:56.120 | I think we'll cross that bridge.

00:06:58.520 | Like they're gonna miniaturize these more and more.

00:07:00.080 | It's gonna look better.

00:07:01.240 | But it is inevitable 'cause it is just so much cheaper.

00:07:06.360 | I just don't see how we're gonna avoid a future

00:07:08.640 | in which almost all of our interactions

00:07:11.840 | with visual technological interfaces will be virtual.

00:07:15.280 | It's gonna be, I mean,

00:07:16.120 | 'cause I did this thing for the New Yorker last month

00:07:19.600 | where I was working in VR.

00:07:21.000 | And there's this product called Immersed

00:07:25.040 | that's kind of winning the work in VR war right now.

00:07:29.360 | And their whole thing was don't focus on collaboration

00:07:33.400 | because people don't wanna put on a helmet

00:07:35.920 | to have a meeting.

00:07:36.760 | They just wanna go on the Zoom.

00:07:37.880 | Like find a way to make people's everyday work

00:07:40.920 | somehow enhanced by using virtual reality.

00:07:43.120 | And the thing they figured out is that focus

00:07:45.400 | on tech type first and give them more screens.

00:07:49.200 | Tech types love screens, right?

00:07:51.080 | They want multiple monitors.

00:07:52.680 | And so if you use Immersed, you can have five monitors.

00:07:56.920 | And they're all being powered by your actual machines,

00:07:59.720 | right, but in the virtual world,

00:08:00.880 | you can have up to five monitors.

00:08:02.240 | And I did this, I worked on it.

00:08:04.840 | They're sharp and they're huge.

00:08:06.200 | You can drag them, put them wherever you want.

00:08:08.000 | And you can have like five big screen TV size monitors

00:08:12.640 | in this virtual world.

00:08:14.320 | And it really does feel like you're looking

00:08:15.800 | at a big screen TV.

00:08:16.640 | The resolution is there, it looks fine.

00:08:18.680 | And now you can have your code over here

00:08:20.160 | and your email here and your bug tracker over here.

00:08:22.600 | And it's literally better than their real world setup

00:08:26.480 | because it's more monitors.

00:08:28.280 | And that is how, see, that's the trend.

00:08:30.640 | So you can have in this virtual reality world,

00:08:33.760 | those monitors, so the tech is there.

00:08:36.120 | So now once you can have those monitors

00:08:37.600 | with an unobtrusive Google Glass type thing

00:08:41.000 | that does not make nice old women wanna punch you,

00:08:43.720 | so they get the look right.

00:08:45.080 | Why buy the monitors?

00:08:47.560 | Like it's literally gonna be,

00:08:48.640 | because in the virtual world,

00:08:50.040 | you have to wear the big headset,

00:08:51.320 | but the thing you see in the virtual world is like,

00:08:52.960 | why do I need to own a monitor?

00:08:54.280 | You can watch YouTube or movies in the virtual world.

00:08:58.240 | I don't know if you've done this before.

00:09:00.360 | It's a movie theater size screen.

00:09:02.400 | And it feels like it.

00:09:04.320 | Like here is this giant screen,

00:09:05.920 | I'm sitting here and it's in a giant dome.

00:09:08.360 | And it's like 10 feet away from me.

00:09:11.920 | And it's huge.

00:09:14.720 | So again, people don't wanna put a headset on

00:09:16.560 | that covers their eyes.

00:09:17.400 | But if I have my glasses I'm wearing anyways,

00:09:20.200 | can put that screen, why would I buy one?

00:09:23.400 | Like, I don't think people realize

00:09:24.680 | like how close we are to the singularity.

00:09:26.640 | That like, there's a certain tipping point

00:09:28.720 | beyond which basically all these factories

00:09:30.440 | go out of business.

00:09:32.000 | And it's just gonna be one factory

00:09:33.240 | that makes these things.

00:09:34.560 | Anyways, that's another point.

00:09:36.920 | But I think people don't realize the degree

00:09:41.160 | to which our world is about to be a lot more virtual.

00:09:44.520 | I don't know if that's, there's good parts of that

00:09:46.640 | and bad parts to it.

00:09:47.480 | - Snow Crash.

00:09:48.640 | - It's gonna be, yeah, Snow Crash,

00:09:50.320 | but without like as many sophisticated.

00:09:53.240 | So here's the thing about Snow Crash,

00:09:56.600 | but you're reading it now, Jesse, I know.

00:09:57.920 | It's like, because like Stevenson's like a,

00:10:00.520 | kind of a cool, smart guy,

00:10:02.200 | all the characters are so like steampunk,

00:10:05.800 | techno, sophisticated, cool,

00:10:08.000 | and like having these rat-a-tat-tat dialogues

00:10:10.960 | and it's like these interesting artistic figures.

00:10:13.200 | And in these early metaverse things,

00:10:15.080 | they're always have like interesting haircuts

00:10:18.040 | and it's always, there's a little punk in it.

00:10:19.680 | And there's, you know, dyed mohawks and weird leather.

00:10:24.680 | And it's like this really cool,

00:10:26.440 | I think the author's the one who imagines like,

00:10:28.200 | yeah, we're gonna be these like cutting edge,

00:10:29.520 | avant-garde steampunk digital nerds,

00:10:31.840 | but not, but awesome.

00:10:33.000 | And it's not gonna be the case.

00:10:34.560 | It's gonna be, you know, out of shape guys

00:10:37.520 | in their American giant hooded sweatshirt

00:10:39.720 | that is wanna watch YouTube on a bigger screen.

00:10:42.440 | (laughs)

00:10:43.640 | It's not the reality, avant-garde is not cool.

00:10:46.560 | Immersed is used by a bunch of programmer nerds

00:10:49.680 | who had to work remotely because of the pandemic

00:10:52.000 | and said, my monitors are at my office, you know?

00:10:54.600 | And so they can put on their headset

00:10:56.360 | and get their monitors back.

00:10:57.240 | It's like never as cool as the Gibson or Stevenson's

00:11:01.640 | of the world predict it's gonna be.

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How Do You Keep Your Eyes Healthy While Reading A Lot?

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