Which one is doing the damage?
BOTH. I think the intense light can damage immediately and the UV rays do more gradual damage though. If you stare at a hot bright sun long enough and go blind, I would say that the briteness is what did it. If you are always at the beach and 50 years from now your eyes are bad and cancerous and not really working well, I would say it was the UV. But IANAED.
I am not an eye doctor.
The UV.
Didja ever notice that it’s hard to look directly at a black light? Your experience the same reflex reaction as if you were staring into a blinding white light, and yet black lights seem to give off very little usefull ambient light. Are our eyes responding to light that is outside of the visible spectrum?
yup. they emit a lot of UV. i’ve gotten sunburns from being in front of them for too long. odd half-the-side-of-my-face Close Encounters sunburns. then again i have been described kindly as “Deathly fair”.
i can’t imagine how much eye damage those things are doing.