Most people's eyes are affected by modern lifestyle (all day staring at a computer screen). Eyes are muscles, use 'em or lose 'em. Looking at a two dimensional plane all day instead of constantly focusing on things at varying distances makes your eyes weaker. I bet a lot of us devs who wear glasses now and have terrible eyesight would have been better off in the olden days in terms of vision health.
i was 5 years old when they mounted ashtrays on my face due to really bad astigmatism. my family only had a black and white tv back then, i didn't watch much tv until much later in life.
not entirely sure your theory applies, to me at least.
i think you see much more people with bad eyesight nowadays as life/nature does not kill us off immediately. with minimal corrections we can be productive members of society (unlike 5k years ago).
