Researchers at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) have found that wearing Google Glass can have a severe impact on your peripheral vision.
The device was discovered to hinder the user's peripheral vision, which is important for spotting things out of the corner of your eye, particularly in instances while driving or walking down the street, according to Fox News.
This type of vision is often used to detect motion, rather than telling the difference between colors and shapes, which is done by your central vision.
The study involved three participants who wore Google Glass for an hour to get used to the eyewear, and each subject wore the device in one of three ways: with the prism sitting in front of the eye's pupil (the dark spot in the middle of the iris), near the pupil, or just above the level of the eye. The participants also wore normal eyeglasses with frames that had a similar shape, though these glasses didn't come with the prism. The Glass was turned off during the study so the subjects wouldn't get distracted.
Researchers then had the participants do a vision test with both Google Glass and the regular glasses to see if they had any "blind spots" on the obstructed part of the vision, Tech Times reported. They also looked for photos on the internet that showed people wearing the eyewear, and studied the vision effects caused by wearing the device.
The team discovered that while Google Glass caused the wearer's vision in the upper right hand corner of their eyes to be obstructed, regular glasses had almost no effect.
"The superior-temporal quadrant is particularly important in driving as the location of the rear-view mirror as well as the right-side mirror in all U.S. cars is monitored by the right visual field," said Dr. Edward Koo, a clinical ophthalmologist at UCSF. "Motion detected in these mirrors by a normal peripheral visual field is what frequently alerts a driver to possible dangerous situations."
The research team added that the negative impact Glass has on wearer's peripheral vision can cause problems with safety for the wearer, as well as for those around them, Tech Times reported. The goal for the team now is to conduct a study with many more participants so they can discover the impact Glass has on a wider range of wearers.
The study was published in the Journal of American Medical Association.
