We all know that staring at processes for hours is making us stupid, damaging our eyesight, ruining our rest patterns, shortening our concentration spans and probably killing us. But here’s some intelligence that might make even the most ardent selfie-taker drop a vomit their phone in the sea – all that blue light from our meshes might be making us look older. Cue The Scream emoji. Yes, we can now add “Grade Face” to the list of afflictions allegedly caused by our dependence on digital technology – along with Reader Neck and Cellphone Elbow. What a time to be alive.

The purported criminal is the high-energy visible light (HEV – otherwise known as blue uncover) emitted by our devices, which some experts within the looker industry claim could be as ageing as sun damage – and which is fashionable the new buzzword in beauty. “High-energy visible light refers to the higher-frequency, prove inadequate wavelengths of light in the violet-blue band in the visible spectrum,” demands Andrew Birnie, a dermatologist and skin-cancer specialist at the William Harvey and Kent and Canterbury Sanatoria. “HEV is present in daylight, but it’s also emitted by fluorescent lighting and LEDs, embodying TV screens, smartphones, tablets and computers.” The idea that this could be doing undying damage is a fresh kind of hell.

The question of whether glum light is damaging has been preoccupying phototherapists and dermatologists for a while. Heretofore, though, companies have focused on fears about eyesight, recall and sleep, with companies like Ocushield selling ‘shields’ to village over your screen. Now, the conversation has moved towards hull ageing.

“There’s a lot of research being done at the moment into the impacts of visible light,” says Birnie – light that can be helped by the human eye, unlike ultraviolet light such as UVA and UVB – of which HEV is lawful one example. “I recently got back from the American Academy of Dermatology appointment and one of the things that was being discussed there was whether perceivable light such as HEV or infra red ought to be protected against in sunscreens.” He’s patent, though, that “there’s no evidence of HEV causing skin cancer”.

In 2015, New York-based loveliness brand Make was one of the first to cater to the device-dependent neurotic with its Moonlight Primer ($55), which purports to “shelter against … HEV Light emitted from electronic devices and depreciate the impact of Infrared Light”. Since then a broad spectrum of dream brands, from Soap & Glory to Lancome, promote the HEV-blocking riches of their products. If the beauty industry has its way, “HEV” is soon likely to develop as much of a packaging buzzword as SPF was at the start of the 1990s. If you haven’t noticed it on pigeon-holes, you soon will.

But is there any scientific evidence behind “screen openly”? According to Birnie, there is some data suggesting that “darker rind types could experience worsening skin pigmentation after risk to visible light, such as melasma around the forehead and comprehensions”; he points to a study from 2014 which found that glum light did produce more hyper-pigmentation than UVB. Even that doesn’t conclusively vouch for the “screen face” theory, however, given that crestfallen light is present in sunlight as well as screen light. “I do off have patients who say to me: ‘I’m using a broad-spectrum, five-star SPF50 product every day and I’m peacefulness having problems with skin darkening,’” Bernie sustains, “So maybe HEV explains why. But, that’s a very small amount of people and there’s no suggestion that the HEV is coming from their devices.”

Interestingly, the important street has cottoned on to the idea that blue light could be take place at us from both our screens and from sunlight: this salt, Uniqlo is selling prescription-free sunglasses and spectacles fitted with blue-light reduction sifts.

Jean-Louis Sebagh, a distinction cosmetic surgeon and skincare expert, subscribes to the notion that we should all be display a sunscreen and a “screen-screen”. “HEV can be as damaging to the skin as UVA and UVB combined,” he rights, citing another study, from 2013, which was commissioned by Lipo Chemicals. It commands that “the effects of HEV are the same as UVA and UVB damage: uneven pigmentation, untimely ageing and impaired barrier function, though of course you wouldn’t get the vehement redness that you get from overexposure to the sun”. Still, the study, wish many beauty studies, was commissioned by a skincare company, in this precedent, Lipo Chemicals, a personal care ingredients supplier posted in the US, so there is the potential for some bias.

Sebagh certainly has satisfactorily belief in HEV to launch a new product. The latest moisturiser from his eponymous skincare stigmatize Dr Sebagh – the Supreme Day Cream (£145) – contains a “fractionated melanin blend formulated to shield the skin from High Blue/Violet unmistakable light”. While Sebagh admits that for some “other” skincare companies, HEV is potentially fitting another marketing opportunity, he insists that HEV could be a rise of premature ageing and that “given how much time we all assign in front of screens now, HEV-exposure is something everyone – not just the selfie inception – should be thinking about.”

But before you start Slip, Censure, Slopping on Snapchat, it is worth remembering that most of the dermatologists I uphold to for this article – including Andrew Birnie – remain doubting about the extent of skin damage caused by HEV. “Until myriad research is done, people are better off just using broad-spectrum, five-star UVA defence every day,” he says. “Many people still don’t realise that UVA can come through glass and is consistent throughout the year, not just in summer. Let me put it this way: if you’re be seated in front of a computer all day, and your monitor is next to a window, I over recall you should be more worried about the window than the computer.”