I have always maintained that 3D is only good for making me feel dizzy and finally Science has stepped up to the plate to back me up. Science Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have come to the conclusion that 3D hurts your eyes (and your brain) because it causes something called vergence-accommodation. Essentially, it’s eye-ADD. Your eyes can’t decide what to focus on, the distance to the screen or the distance to the things that are “popping out” of it, which can cause visual-discomfort, fatigue, and headaches. Coincidentally, those symptoms are often caused by bad movies that adopt 3D as a last-ditch effort to seem relevant.
While that may seem relatively straight-forward, the study breaks down the problem even further, going so far as to discuss the coming plague: 3D handhelds. Apparently, when using a 3D handheld or screen that is close to the eyes, maximum discomfort occurs when the image appears to be in front of the screen. Things that pop out. In theaters, the effect is the opposite and it’s that appear to be behind the screen that really screw you up. You’ll notice that there is no mention of discomfort caused by images that appear to be on the screen. Hint hint, nudge nudge.
Although this study will give 3D detractors something to point to when they say that 3D is not just something they don’t like, but something that is actually bad, it’s unlikely to change anything. Yes, 3D can be uncomfortable, but we’ve known that and have been experiencing that for years and it hasn’t affected the industry yet. Besides, while 3D handhelds, phones, and TV’s haven’t reached market saturation yet, all the money that got sunk into expensive R&D is gone beyond retrieval; so it’s unlikely that the people who want to make it back will stop trying to convince you that 2D-to-3D is the next analog-to-digital. There’s not much you can do to stop this ball because it’s already rolling. But in the meantime, help yourself to a heaping serving of righteous indignation.
(via TechCrunch)
