Times change and so does technology, developing new different ways to save your day. Moreover, it even goes one step ahead and manages to convince us that some daily activity we never found tedious is somehow an absolute waste of our precious time. Right after that, it provides us the perfect solution we never needed.

From voices reading to you through headphones, to precarious errand boys who drive around the city instead of you. Nobody would want you to miss a status update if you got off the couch.

You may be thinking it’s only some basic social interactions we’re missing - no big deal, right? Our smartphones already have got that covered - well, that’s not it.

Until now, no one would think you could attend a medical procedure such as a vision test without actually being in the examination room with the specialist. And let me tell you, it’s not possible to do this in a safe way.

Recently, an American startup has developed a software which claims to be able to test your sight, and therefore invites you to leave your eye health in their hands. The intention, as it’s done with every fine product, you’re convinced that your annual or biannual visit to the optometrist is a completely useless pain in the neck.

They refer to this process as “frustrating and inconvenient” and mention "little innovation in tools and procedures have experienced during the last 75 years" proving a lack of knowledge on the development of the optometrist profession.

What makes this alternative dangerous?

On this disinformation era we’re living, what you see is all there is. The testimony given by some stranger is enough for us to make up our minds and make a decision.

This on top of a generalized untrust to the health system and its professionals, based on ignorance - ironically, since it’s never been so easy to find well corroborated information - makes us end up using homeopathy, taking our acquaintances advices on medicine and believing you can take an eye test without an optometrist.

I don’t have any doubt this program may provide you with an acceptable refraction to some users. However, it will never be able to diagnose, percibe abnormalities in your way of looking and seeing not related to refraction issues, neither make and adaption of contact lenses - yes, they don’t only vary on diopters.- Besides that, there are numerous alternative visual exams regarding your field, presence of suppression or strabismus, between others, which you may not know you need and only a vision professional is capable of performing.

Do we really give that little importance to our sight to believe it doesn’t deserve a proper exam by a specialist?