Scientists warn you risk blindness by staring directly at all 10,000 articles about eclipse
MONCTON, NB—Do not stare directly at the hot takes.
According to a rare joint report from Environment Canada, Health Canada, and the Apple Store, scientists have discovered a very serious risk related to the upcoming eclipse, scheduled to occur August 21st, 2017.
They suggest that you try to avoid looking directly at many—or, if you can avoid it, any—of the more than 10,000 online articles expected to be dedicated to what is, at the end of the day, just the moon going in front of the sun.
"It's not worth the risk," says Heath Robertson, a top scientist with Environment Canada. "Are you really going to learn more from than 34th article than you did from the first one?"
"And what you mainly learned from that first article was that it's basically the moon moving in front of the sun, right? Well, that's all you need to know about it. That's pretty much all we know; we can explain it in numbers a bit more instead of words, but yeah, that's basically it."
Health Canada expert Sandra Ranamazzazzi agrees, and explains that though the solar eclipse is what everyone will be talking about this month, that might be entirely part of the problem.
...it's basically the moon moving in front of the sun, right? Well, that's all you need to know about it.- Heath Robertson, Environment Canada
"August 21st, 2017 is going to pose a tremendous risk to the eye health of the nation, but perhaps not in the way you think. The second the eclipse happens, instead of looking at it, people are going to look at Twitter, to see what their friends and colleagues have to say about the matter. Which will probably be 'Wow' or 'Look at that' (even though neither of you is, in fact, looking at that, if you're looking at Twitter)."
That said, Ranamazzazzi acknowledges people will be tempted to check in with their friends, so prior steps must be taken, and that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
"I understand it's 2017. People are going to want to check out the conversation. If your eyes are weakened from a solid month of reading Vice's Guide to the Solar Eclipse and Cracked's 14 Times A Solar Eclipse Was Responsible For a Change In a Country's Leadership, though, you're going to be in big trouble. You're not gonna be able to stand up to the strain of the eclipse and its associated screen-watching."
How can people avoid the temptation to look directly at so many of these articles? Ranamazzazzi has advice.
"What ever happened to reading an old-fashioned print article?" she asks.
"Not only will it not be constantly radiating blue-spectrum light into your eyeballs in the same way, you often have to pay for print material. Remember that? When you had to pay to read something? That will be another limiting factor that may restrict you to only 50 or so articles."
At press time it was revealed that, yes, this article does count towards your 10,000.
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