The lossof a laptop or crash of a hard drive does not jeopardise the data because it is regularly saved in "the cloud" and can be accessed via the web from any machine.
Since digital photos can be "stored" in multiple ways (on a hard drive, online, and on DVDs in different locations), you're much less likely to suffer a lossof your irreplaceable images.
It does not affect peripheral vision, but the lossof clear central vision can rob a person of the ability to read, drive and recognise people's faces even without causing total blindness.