It’s one of my biggest problems with 3-D movies. I don’t mind paying extra, nor do I mind wearing goofy plastic eyeglasses. However, I do mind the headaches and blurred vision that usually accompanies 3-D movies. I figured I was in the minority on this, but VOA News suggests that 3-D headaches, eye strain, and other health problems are common because of how 3-D technology works.
Basically, the technology of how movies create 3-D images runs counter-intuitively to how the eyes actually see. According to Martin Banks, a professor of optometry at Berkeley, blames the headaches and fatigue caused by 3-D movies on vergence accommodation conflict: “You have to concentrate your eyes to something near, but focus your eyes on something far […] You’re taking that normal relationship which has been coupled in the brain for years and you’re changing it.”
Those viewers most likely bothered by vergence accommodation conflict, younger folks, are also the ones most likely to go to the movies en mass. Given that 3-D will be a staple of movies, television, and even art in the years to come, hopefully this is the sort of problem that the brain can guard itself against with increased exposure.
Tags: 3-D movies, 3-D movies hurt your brain, health effects of 3-D movies, unusual health news, 3-D causes headaches and blurred vision, movies in 3-D, Martin Banks, University of California-Berkeley, vergence accommodation conflict