Do you have difficulty reading regularly? It may not just be because of your lack of willpower but it could be linked to the color of your eyes.
Reading is a hobby for some and an obsession for others. You may be part of this second part of the population. However, you have already tried, but each time, reading rhymes with boredom or drowsiness. The National Book Center, which released a barometer on the French and reading in 2023, revealed that 86% of French people spontaneously declare themselves readers.
That being said, this trend hides weaknesses and in particular a dropout from reading among 15-24 year olds. One in 5 young people do not read at all. This study also reveals that the time spent reading is much less than that spent on screens: 41 minutes per day compared to more than three hours per week for screens.
If reading seems to be a question of interest or society, a new hypothesis associates it with a much more physical element: eye color. Kyoko Yamaguchi and her student Faith Erin Cain from Liverpool John Moores University conducted an experiment with 39 volunteers to work on this theory.
After being plunged into darkness for 30 seconds, the participants had to take a reading test under different, increasingly stronger light intensities. The brightness was increased until the volunteers were able to read a sequence of letters written on a wall three meters in front of them.
Participants were divided into two categories: those with blue eyes and those with light or dark brown eyes. Those with blue eyes needed an average lighting level of 0.7 lux, a unit of measurement for light intensity, compared to a more intense lighting of 0.82 lux for those with brown eyes. Blue eyes would therefore be an advantage for reading in low light environments. Those affected could therefore take time for reading in more different places.
Even if this experiment was carried out on a very small sample and has not yet been validated by additional studies, it seems to go in the direction that the loss of pigmentation of the iris makes it possible to maximize vision in dimly lit environments. . This could also explain, according to Kyoko Yamaguchi, why blue eyes are very present in Northern Europe, a less sunny environment. Finally, this study opens the way to in-depth research on the different links between physical characteristics and sensory abilities.