From gender blindness to color blindness only affecting one eye, here’s what you need to know.

If you don’t already know, color blindness is where an individual sees colors differently to the majority of others, typically having trouble distinguishing the difference between similar colors such as reds, greens, and yellows.

However, how common is color blindness? Color-blindness could be more common than was initially realized – with this affecting approximately one in twelve men and one in two-hundred women worldwide.

With such a vast number of people affected by this condition, there are plenty of myths to go along with it. These include the inability to see explicit colors, all color blind people seeing the world in black and white and finally color blindness being extremely dangerous.

Whilst this article won’t address these color-blind myths directly, we have gathered together eight facts about color-blindness – helping you establish what is true, helping you to develop a further understanding into the lives of those suffering from this condition.

Here are eight facts about color-blindness.

 

1. Not all those who are color blind see in black and white

For obvious reasons, many individuals believe that color-blindness means seeing everything in black and white. This is not true.

In fact, as little as one percent of all color blind people only see colors such as whites, blacks, and greys whilst the remaining ninety-nine percent mainly suffer from color deficiencies. Common colors affected include reds, blues, greens, yellows, browns, oranges, and purples.

A color deficiency is where the color looks different compared to a normal eye, with some of these colors such as yellows, reds, and greens being difficult to distinguish between.

2. Color blindness is not gender blind 

Despite color blindness affecting more males than females, color blindness is not gender blind – it doesn’t target a specific gender.

Instead, anyone can become color blind whether they’re born with this or later develop mild color-blindness at a later age.

3. Few people suffer from unilateral dichromacy 

 

Unilateral dichromacy is where one eye can see color perfectly well, whilst the other eye has some form of color blindness or deficiency.

However, this form of color-blindness is very rare – affecting very, very few people who have color-blindness.

4. Color blindness can affect your cooking 

Did you know that color blindness can affect the safety of your cooking? For example, those with a red to green color blindness may have slight trouble cooking meat, especially determining when it’s cooked due to the difficulty in seeing different shades of red.

For this reason, many color blind individuals have to be extra careful when cooking meat such as pork or steak to avoid food poisoning. Often, it’s much easier and safer for another household member to cook red meat dishes – if possible.

5. All babies are born colorblind 

When born, all babies are in fact color-blind. This is not something to worry about nor something you will even recognize as they are so young.

This is because the cones in the eyes are not yet fully developed meaning all the colors cannot be fully seen.

It is estimated that it takes roughly six months for a new-born baby to see all the colors you too can see.

However, for some babies, as color-blindness can also be genetic, the cones in their eyes will develop in a slightly different way – forming deficiencies such as reds and greens from a very young age.

6. Color blindness can impact on some major areas of life

Whilst color blindness may not impact one’s life massively, in other countries and depending on your degree of color blindness your everyday life may be somewhat impacted to a greater extent.

For example, in Romania people who are colorblind are not able to receive a driver’s license. This is to protect themselves and other road users, mainly from obstacles such as traffic lights where those suffering from red and green colorblindness may have trouble navigating.

Secondly, in some countries, such as the United Kingdom, certain trades are out of bounds for those suffering from colorblindness. These include becoming a doctor, electrician, and pilot. As you can see, these jobs are dangerous on the best of days for those with regular vision – those who are colorblind would not only be putting themselves at risk but those who work with and/or around them.

7. Facebook is blue because the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is color-blind

A less known fact is that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, is in fact colorblind. Zuckerberg suffers a red to green color deficiency, therefore, he set up Facebook with a blue color scheme so he and others would have no trouble seeing it.

8. There is more than one type of color blindness

As previously discussed, all people who are color blind do not necessarily see the world in black and white. However, if this isn’t the case then what do they see and how many different types are there?

 

There are four different types of color-blindness these are as follows:

• Protan (red-blind/weak)
• Deutan (green-blind/weak)
• Tritan (blue-blind/weak)
• Achromatopsia (seeing the world in black, white and grey)

An individual with color blindness may have more than one of these types, for example, both protan and deutan are common – with these forming the red and green color-blindness that many suffer from.

The bottom line 

Color blindness does not mean those with the condition see the world in black and white, this is instead a very small portion of those with colorblindness – instead, there are four types of colorblindness with the most common being a mix of protan and deutan, forming a red to green colorblindness.

Likewise, the true extent of this condition is often overlooked, with everyday tasks perhaps becoming more difficult.

On the other hand, in some countries such as Romania obtaining a driving license is not possible – this inevitably results in greater difficulty in everyday logistics, perhaps needing a driver or access to public transport daily.