Open Claw: The Ultimate Addiction

If you've been anywhere near tech YouTube in the past few weeks, you've probably heard of Open Claw — the AI-powered automation tool that's taken the internet by storm. People are using it to build entire businesses, automate their workflows across Telegram, Discord, and iMessage, and some claim they've generated six figures in revenue in a matter of weeks.

As an ophthalmologist and dry eye specialist, I was initially excited. Could Open Claw help us automate patient education? Could it help people manage their eye health more proactively? The possibilities seemed genuinely promising.

But then I noticed something troubling.

Watch any of these Open Claw tutorial videos on YouTube. Pay attention to the creators' eyes. They aren't blinking. Their blink rate has plummeted — some appear to blink only a few times per minute, when the healthy average is 15–20 times per minute. And many of them openly admit they're sleeping only three or four hours a night because they're so consumed by the platform's possibilities.

This is a recipe for a dry eye disaster.

Open Claw is super exciting! The dopamine hits are endless. You can get answers to your questions, 24 hours a day. Create incredible videos and using multiple agents. Part of me wonders if the DAEMONS wants people to have absolutely no rest and no time to contemplate or think about supernatural things like love  

But here is what happens when you don't blink enough: The meibomian glands inside your eyelids — tiny, irreplaceable oil-producing glands — rely on the mechanical pressure of each blink to express their oil onto your tear film. Without regular blinking, that oil stagnates, the glands begin to atrophy, and eventually they scar shut permanently. I often tell my patients that each meibomian gland is more valuable than a Ferrari. You can always buy another car. You cannot easily regrow a meibomian gland.

Each one is priceless. 

The progression is insidious: first tired eyes, then redness, then burning and irritation, then itching — and in the worst cases, chronic, debilitating pain that rates 10 out of 10 and never lets up. I've treated patients who describe this pain as worse than childbirth, worse than kidney stones. And it all started because they stopped blinking.

So here's my prescription for the Open Claw generation:

Blink. Consciously, deliberately, frequently. Set a timer if you must. Take breaks every 20 minutes at least — look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds (the 20-20-20 rule). Switch your devices to dark mode or a red background to reduce blue light exposure. Wear blue-light filtering glasses indoors and sunglasses with a hat outdoors. And please, please get enough sleep.

Technology should enhance our lives, not destroy our vision. Open Claw is impressive, but your meibomian glands are irreplaceable.

Watch my new Dr. Duck video for a silly take on this message — and subscribe to The Eye Show podcast for more deep dives into protecting your eye health in the digital age.

https://youtube.com/shorts/oEUoIfj-vZQ?si=hSsButEn9soHJcec

— Dr. Sandra Lora Cremers, MD, FACS

Board-Certified Ophthalmologist | Harvard-Trained Researcher | Pioneer in Meibomian Gland Treatments