SCENE + HEARD: Daily Post For Better Vision, Let the Sunshine In By Staff Wednesday, March 21, 2018 1:23 PM Being nearsighted is far more common than it once was. The prevalence of myopia, the condition’s medical name, in Americans has soared by 66 percent since the early 1970s, according to a 2009 study by the National Eye Institute; in China and other East Asian countries, as many as 90 percent of recent high school graduates are thought to be nearsighted. Read More.