3D TV Health Concern: Sort of

"Is 3D TV hazardous to your health?"
New York Post (April 14, 2010)

"If conventional wisdom says that watching TV is bad for your eyes, watching 3D TV may be three times worse, we're beginning to discover.

"Doctors and researchers are starting to warn viewers about the potential dangers of spending too much time in front of a 3D boob tube.

"Guidelines for Samsung's new line of 3D TVs warn against prolonged exposure to 3D TVs for kids (kids under 6 shouldn't watch at all), teens, pregnant women, the elderly, sleep-deprived people and anyone buzzed on alcohol.

"They also point out that watching 3D programming might cause motion sickness, lingering depth perception problems, disorientation and 'decreased postural stability.'..."

There's more detail about the warnings that Samsung has on their 3D TV, which would seem more over-the-top to me if we weren't in a society where a jar of peanuts has a "...WARNING: CONTAINS PEANUTS" label. (I'm not making this up)

The New York Post goes on:

"...While most of the warnings may be the work of overzealous lawyers, there's 'a small method to the madness,' says Dr. Norman Saffra, director of ophthalmology at Maimonides Medical Center.

"This is especially true if you happen to have an ocular condition -- such as weak eye muscles, lazy eye or the inability to see 3D. In those cases, 'you're stressing the [eye] muscle system so that everything can stay in focus all the time,' Saffra says....

"...'People under the influence of alcohol lose some of their control over their eye muscles, so watching a 3D movie or TV show becomes more challenging for them, he says.

"This could cause major problems -- especially after a long afternoon watching, for instance, the planned ESPN 3D channel.

"'At the end of the day, taking off those 3D glasses and walking down the steps while you're inebriated could be a problem,' he says."

For that matter, after an afternoon of doing anything and chugging down beer, you might have trouble walking down steps.

Oh, well. I suppose eventually we'll all have to have signs dangling in front of our eyes that say, "WARNING: BEING STUPID MAY CAUSE SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH."

True? True.