I am not able to tell your age, obviously, but I bet that when most of us were kids our parents kept telling us to stand up and sit on a longer distance from the TV. I was one of those kids who was literally sticking his face to the screen and I think that this affected my eyesight at some point, as technology back then was not so developed. There were no view-angle screens with covering layers and such things…
The real question since then remained, whether screens actually affect your sight at some point, and what to do in order to protect your eyes? This trend to “sit further from the TV” is still mostly applied by parents because they maybe have been taught the same, so I think that it is time to address this possible myth?
What is more, studies say that people nowadays tend to spend ~10 hours a day on a screen, whether they are working or just chatting, so if it is real that screens harm our eyes, then it could be a big problem, right? Those are the reasons why I picked up this topic and you could find an answer to at least one lie of your childhood, or a lesson that you’d apply in future.
What problems do screens cause?
Doctors say that screens cannot turn us blind, but they may have some short-term effects, which are mostly expressed as irritation. In an example, if you are looking at a screen for a longer period of time you may find out that you are not blinking that often, which therefore will make your eyes dry and this is really uncomfortable.
I am sure that most of us experienced it, so what can you do actually about this problem? One of the things is to buy eye-drops, just make sure that they are for the right purpose, and keep your eyes moisturized every time you feel the discomfort that I am talking about. However, if you are not a fan of medicine (if you consider the drops as such), then you can apply another solution.
As the muscles of your eyes are constantly working, then you should definitely make use of some rest when working on projects that require you to spend a session of 10 hours. Studies say, that every 20 minutes you have to take a break for 20-30 seconds just by watching aside from the screen and then go back to the work you’ve got to do.
What can you do to minimize the problems?
One and the most helpful things that you can do, is to change your device, as it might be too old or not suitable for your eyes. By those two things, I mean that your device might be out of date and with a low refresh rate, as most devices are made to be around 60 Hertz. The refresh rate means that 60 times in a second your device refreshes the image and your eyes are constantly trying to refocus and cope with it, so getting a device with 120hertz (double the amount) will “hack” this and you’d feel better!
Another major thing that you should keep in mind is that the tiny fonts you use can make your eyes even more tired because your brain is putting more effort to distinguish each small letter among the rest around it. Just use big sized fonts, and you will be good to go! If you are browsing, then you can press CTRL and +, which will ZOOM IN the page and will make it better for you!
Posture and how you look at the screen, however, has the most effect on it. When you are working on a laptop, just place it at least 25 inches from your eyes and preferably look at it at 20 degrees, because scientists have many times proved that this is the best position and manufacturers are sticking to it!
Last but not least, you should consider making a pair of glasses for yourself. The blue coating on the top of the glass is said to protect your eyes from the rays that are affecting them in a harmful way. Also, it is highly important for you to manage your working time properly. If you are working on projects that require time and information processing, then you should better do them at daylight, instead of at night.
I am a night owl myself and honestly, there are nights that I get tired just by standing in front of the screen. Because of the dark surrounding around you, the bright screen is digging right into your brain… our body is programmed to sleep at night time and this affects our whole health status, not just the eyes, so you should really consider and optimize a proper schedule for your work!
Special thanks to:
TheVerge YouTube channel – video for How To Save Your Eyes From Screens!
