If last week’s news about “Netflix Face” had you rescheduling your weekend plans to involve something other than binge-watching your favorite show, you weren’t alone.
The deal: Some derms are saying the light (otherwise known as high-energy visible light) that computers and cell phones give off can get deep into the skin—resulting in free-radical damage and that always-terrible culprit of collagen breakdown, a big-time duo behind sagging skin, lines and wrinkles and just about all the things that go into aging your skin.
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And if you’re still skeptical, consider this: “While I do think it remains to be seen how much high-energy visible light is actually doing to our skin, I never say never because we have found our relatively recently that pollution is an issue and we weren’t aware of that either,” says Washington, D.C., dermatologist Elizabeth Tanzi, MD.
“I think all of those devices produce infrared spectrum light to your face they can break down your tissue sooner,” Montclair, NJ, dermatologist Jeanine B. Downie, says. “This is absolutely true. What I recommend as a remedy is the SkinMedica Total Defense + Repair Superscreen. I use it every day and I reapply it like crazy. I am in it to win it and this will help decrease skin cancer and prevent me from aging early—very few sunblocks have any anti-infrared technology in them, as infrared is in the light spectrum around 940 nm.”
So what else an you do? The solution is pretty simple. “Stop staring at a screen all day!” Dr. Tanzi says.
