AP Research Week 9: Correlation Between Time Spent Doing Near-Work Activities To Myopia

Hello everyone!

For this week’s blog, I will be doing a more in-depth analysis on the data I previously talked about in week 4 + 5, as some of the analysis there was incorrect and needed some revision. I will be doing the same for time spent outdoors and diet in the next few weeks.

According to previous scholarly literature, time spent doing near-work activities is considered one of the essential indicators for determining quality of vision. Unfortunately, the correlation between time spent doing near-work activities and myopia was found to be weak within this study (correlation coefficient: 0.1488) and non-significant within this study (p > 0.05). Similarly to age, the correlation between near-work activity and myopia achieved statistical significance in the articles chosen in the literature review, Chen et al., 2018 and Saw, 2003. However, the findings found in this study contradict both those articles, which can be attributed to a variety of factors. One potential factor is the lack of a widely accepted definition for “near-work,” which may have obscured how each individual submitted their respective amount of time in hours per day spent doing these activities. Another potential element that may have inhibited the results for this section is how individuals perceive what the necessary distance may be for it to count as near-work. An example is depending on the viewing distance from which people look at their TVs or stare at a screen, some people may perceive their viewing distance to be far enough for it not to count as near-work. This lack of clarity can skew the results and shows that people spending time partaking in activities that involve short distances may not develop myopia.

That’s all for this portion of the analysis. Stay tuned for next weeks!