What Is Myopia (Nearsightedness)?

Our eyes are like a very precise camera with the cornea/lens liking the lens, and the retina working as the film or image sensor in the camera.

When the image is formed exactly on the retina of the eye, we can see clearly. Otherwise, if the eye’s cornea and lens cannot relax enough, or the eyeball is elongated due to long period of intensive close work, or other reasons, the image falls in front of the retina rather than exactly on it, and our eyes are blurred. If this situation persists for too long, we become nearsighted – sometime, permanently.

Roughly a third of people in the United States suffer from myopia, or nearsightedness — they see close objects clearly, such as words in a book, newspaper, or computer screen, but things in the distance appear blurry. The anatomic root of the problem is misshaped cornea and lens, and an elongation of the eye as it grows.

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