Here is how your iPhone could soon alert you if your phone is too close to your face

Many people now spend countless amounts of hours scrolling on their phones whether that be on Instagram, TikTok or playing multiple mobile games, but this could soon come to a stop.

Studies have been done about whether or not a large amount of time spent on phones and simply scrolling on them could be determinantal to well-being and also impact people’s vision as they get older, with damning results.

It has indeed been proved via studies that a prolonged amount of time spent on phones and in front of s screen close to our eyes is going to cause myopia, something that increases the chance of becoming short-sighted.

Apple to introduce screen distance feature

Apple appear to be actively looking to combat this issue with what is to come in their upcoming ios 17 updates for iPhones which will allow users to enable a feature that detects when a phone is too close to someone’s eyes, thus ensuring people can either get off their phones or adjust how they are using it.

This tool will be called ‘screen distance’ and it will work out how close a person is holding their phone to their face and then sending a notification to alert the user and advise them to move it away so it doesn’t impact their eyes and vision later in life.

The new feature was announced during the latest Apple conference which also saw the American tech giant unveil their first ever new product since the Apple Watch, as they will be bringing a virtual reality headset into their product catalogue.

Much like screen time which alerts users every week how long they have been on their phone for over the past seven days and lets them know their average time of usage every day to try and help people better use their time instead of aimlessly scrolling for hours on end.

New feature to target screen time issues

As seen by the screenshot above, this new feature will be available to users in the upcoming ios 17 update in the settings app and then going into the screen time section before having to confirm if they wish to have screen distance enabled.

This feature will indeed need to be updated to the latest ios 17 when it comes available to the public, however, another catch is that it will also only be available on iPhone XS and any other newer models.