The Indian Mom: Encouraging Better Eye Health, One Blink at a Time

The Indian Mom is a computer application for students and professionals who experience symptoms of Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) when they spend more than four hours per day in front of a digital screen. Designed by first-year students Regena Reyes, Xiaohan Miao, and Siddhant Goyle, the app flashes a cartoon image of a multi-tasking "Indian Mom" on the screen, reminding the user to take a blink-break and assisting in completing eye exercises. Take a look at how it works here:

Watch past the 16-second mark in the video above!

At user-defined intervals, a giant screen-filling Indian Mom cartoon will pop up to remind the user that it is time to blink and exercise their tired eyes. You can easily download The Indian Mom from the app store or from the accompanying website. Basic settings for the program are set so that the Indian Mom image pops up every 7 minutes and moves around on the screen for a total of 23 seconds. When the icon appears, the rest of the screen becomes dark, and the user is blocked from continuing work until completing the Indian Mom pop-up exercises.

Sid was compelled to use the image of an "Indian Mom," not only to represent his own mother but also a broader cultural icon of the tough-love mother who instills good habits in her children—including taking care of one's eye health.

The project name was inspired by team member Siddhant's mother. After he left India to attend graduate school in New York City, he said he missed his mother's care, including her chiding him for staring at the computer for so long. Sid was compelled to use the image of an "Indian Mom," not only to represent his own mother but also a broader cultural icon of the tough-love mother who instills good habits in her children—including taking care of one's eye health.

Experts agree that the underlying cause of Computer Vision Syndrome is a decreased blink rate when looking at digital screens.

Reflecting their own nationalities, the team members interviewed experts, extreme screen-users, and everyday screen-users from the US, India, and China. Next they debriefed and synthesized the insights they gleaned from the interviews. They found that "untreated Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) decreases overall vision health and can result in a permanent reduction in vision. Experts agree that the underlying cause of CVS is a decreased blink rate when looking at digital screens." With this in mind, the team set out to create a solution that would encourage users to blink more frequently and reduce exposure to blue light while minimally impacting productivity.