Joseph Gardner admits he’d certainly rather be outside.

“I like to ride my bikes and play basketball,” Gardner says.

Instead, the 12-year-old spent a recent sunny morning inside taking a math test in his family’s living room. This year, the sixth-grader spends three days a week at school and the other two remote learning from home.

“It’s been really hard to focus, and it’s been really hard,” he said as he was starting the test.

Gardner says he means that figuratively and literally. “(My eyes) hurt pretty bad when you’re on the screen for six hours,” he said. “I get pretty tired.”

Joseph’s mom, Sarah Buschynski, says she’s noticed him struggling with his eyes more, too.

“I think there is a lot more screen time, where we have to tell the kids to just get off and be kids. Go do something else, like play outside or some kind of activity that doesn’t have you sitting in front of a screen,” Buschynski said.

Buschynski also brought her son back to see his eye doctor, Dr. Gregory Pinto.

The longtime ophthalmologist says he’s starting to see a slow uptick of younger patients experiencing eye strain, which could lead to bigger concerns down the road.

“Eye strain does not cause damage to the eye, but what we are looking at is whether prolonged near work, prolonged staring at a computer or staring at a book, can cause people to become more nearsighted,” said Pinto, whose practice is in Saratoga Springs.

Pinto is also vice president of Eyes NY, a newly formed consortium of more than a dozen local clinicians. He says most of the doctors in the group are experiencing the same thing in their practices.

“No pun intended, we definitely need to keep an eye on that because one to two years of remote learning is a lot of time staring at screens up close,” Pinto said. “I am hoping that I am not going to see a dramatic uptick in myopia in the next few years.”

In addition to investing in a pair of blue light glasses, which should lessen screen time’s impact on sleep cycles, Pinto recommends more time outside and frequent breaks to ward off strain.

“I tell people to obey the 20-20-20 rule,” Pinto said. “Every 20 minutes, look for 20 seconds at something that is at least 20 feet away, just to give your focusing muscles a break.”

More time outside doing what he loves is a prescription Gardner seems more than happy to get on board with.

“We upgraded the basketball hoop so he could be outside more, got some sidewalk chalk,” Buschynski said, as she watched her son walk the family dog in the front yard. “It’s good to get some fresh air.”