Viewing 3D TV over two months produces no discernible effects on balance, coordination or eyesight

Abstract

With the rise in stereoscopic 3D media, there has been concern that viewing stereoscopic 3D (S3D) content could have long-term adverse effects, but little data are available. In the first study to address this, 28 households who did not currently own a 3D TV were given a new TV set, either S3D or 2D. The 116 members of these households all underwent tests of balance, coordination and eyesight, both before they received their new TV set, and after they had owned it for 2 months. We did not detect any changes which appeared to be associated with viewing 3D TV. We conclude that viewing 3D TV does not produce detectable effects on balance, coordination or eyesight over the timescale studied.

Practitioner Summary: Concern has been expressed over possible long-term effects of stereoscopic 3D (S3D). We looked for any changes in vision, balance and coordination associated with normal home S3D TV viewing in the 2 months after first acquiring a 3D TV. We find no evidence of any changes over this timescale.

Keywords:

• Stereoscopic displays
• 3D television
• stereo vision
• binocular vision

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by British Sky Broadcasting Ltd, Grant Way Isleworth, TW7 5QD, UK (http://corporate.sky.com/). JR was also funded by Royal Society University Research Fellowship UF041260 during the course of the study. AG is supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) and Unit (BRU) based at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle University. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, NIHR or the Department of Health. We thank Clare Associates (http://www.clareassoc.co.uk/) for implementing the online questionnaires; Philip Wilkinson for constructing the coordination task and Marc Read for its electronics; Suzanne Pinkney for running the Research Volunteer Database; Andrew Baron, Stephanie Clutterbuck, Laura Gray, Yonggang He, Eva Karyka, Ahmad Khundakar, Emma Kirkpatrick, Emma Malcolm, Carmen Martin Ruiz, Danielle McCutcheon, Richard Morris, Bahaa Omran, Preeti Singh, and Kun Wang for running the balance and coordination tests; Lynn Rochester for advice on accelerometry; Paul Boyle and the team at C4 Sightcare for hosting the eye tests; Roseanne Robinson for drawing up the standard operating procedures for the orthoptists; Roseanne Robinson, Caroline Penrose, Laura Crawford, Michelle Dent for carrying out the orthoptic examinations; and Paul Boyle, Paul Garvey, Niall Armstrong, Jonathan Bone and Priya Jivani for carrying out the optometric examinations. We thank Suzanne Englebright for excellent administrative support throughout.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.