The pandemic has caused the largest disruption to education in history, according to the United Nations. In fact, as of February this year, schools globally had been closed for an average of 4.5 months due to the Covid-19 pandemic’s effects, affecting an estimated 1.6 billion students.

The long-term effects could be real—UNESCO estimates that today’s generation of students could lose $17 trillion in lifetime earnings at current values due to missed learning and skills during the pandemic.

The effects are also palpable on the screen time and vision care fronts.

Pew Research Center fielded an ongoing study of U.S. parents first in March 2020 and again—to the same parents—in April 2021 to track opinions on screen time and social media use during the pandemic. About 8 out of 10 parents of children aged 11 and younger (81%) said their child used a tablet computer, up from 68% in March 2020. The numbers also went up year over year for social media use—21% said their child used TikTok in the April 2021 survey, up from 13% in 2020.

Overall, 51% of parents said their child was spending “too much time” playing video games, and 42% said the same about smartphone use.

The numbers are clear—and the vision care community agrees that myopia is also on the rise in children in part due to an overabundance of Covid-19 pandemic-fueled screen time.

In this issue, we unwrap a fresh take on myopia management by delving into the role that the optician can take to assist the optometrist in this fast-growing specialty area. Check out our feature on the subject, The Optician’s Role in Myopia Management, starting on page 52.

And, in our In-Between fashion feature starting on page 44, we unveil an on-point lineup of eyewear for fickle tweens and teens, who are crossing the great, complicated divide between childhood and adulthood—and experimenting with their own personal style along the way.

There’s much, much more in this information-packed issue of EB. Tune into my focused issue tour for a snapshot by clicking on the play button above.

We hope you enjoy the issue!

Erinn Morgan,
Editor-in-Chief + Editorial Director
Director of Social Media, PentaVision