The condition is called macular degeneration. My mum has a bit of that going on. It creates "holes" in the sufferers vision. The brain compensates though if it's not a severe case so you still can see without a big hole in your vision but you would notice it when trying to focus on something like book.
Thing is staring at any light source for extended periods is likely to have an effect. I can't imagine sitting at a computer is any worse than staring at an old style TV. I'd also think that the more modern LCD, LED, or whatever displays are a heckuva a lot better than the big old CRTs blasting away at your eyeballs all the time.
Sounds like some scientists did a study blasting really bright LED lights into some poor woodland creature's eyeballs for 24/7 leading to inevitable results, some journalist got a hold of the data and twisted into some alarmist nonsense about how "COMPUTORBS R GONNA FRY YER EYEBALLZ!! EVERYBODY PANIC!!". Happens all the time. Someone wants to sell some newspapers or get some extra page clicks so they take a valid scientific study, make their owned uninformed and unscientific conclusions then regurgitate it to the public. Then if the people who did the study bother to correct the misinformation the media freaks who already have their money MAY post some kind of subtle retraction nobody will ever see and their audience repeat the faulty information in perpetuity making people do silly things like rub colloidial silver on their buttholes or punch themselves repeatedly in the groin to reinvigorate their sperm.
If something in the news seems like it might be fer real and affect me personally I try to read about it from multiple sources and check out where the info originated from. Most of the time it turns out I'm not actually going to die a fiery death or have my eyes explode in their sockets.