The most striking demonstration of this was a study in the late 60s of eyesight among Eskimoes in Barrow, Alaska. The same phenomenon has turned up in studies of other newly-civilized peoples, suggesting that modern life somehow causes nearsightedness. On the theory that too much close focusing while young permanently distorts the eyeball, some experts gave kids regular doses of atropine, which relaxes the eye muscles. A few claimed this halted myopia but failed to convince many of their peers, and there was the obvious practical problem that with your eyes dilated you couldn't see for beans. But nothing has been proven.
Animal studies tend to support the idea that myopia is caused by eyestrain.
The idea that the civilization means bad eyes is by no means universally accepted. Other studies have failed to find a correlation between environment and vision. Search me, pard. If you buy the eyestrain argument you could feed the kids whale blubber and chuck the books, TV, and needlepoint lessons, but the tradeoff might not be worth it. Having to wear eyeglasses is hardly a major handicap these days whereas being an uneducated mope is.