What is Digital Eye Strain?
We use digital devices now more than ever before, we use them at work and our private time, constantly texting, researching and scrolling through the social media feeds. Many of us have replaced traditional books with tablets like iPads or ebook readers like Kindles. We are staring at LCD screens for hours every day, this is something that our eyes have never evolved to do.
When you start to experience any of the below symptoms you might be a victim of Digital Eye Strain also knows as Computer Vision Syndrome.
- Eye fatigue / tired eyes
- Eye discomfort
- Headache
- Dry eyes / itchy eyes / irritated eyes
- Blurry vision / double vision
- Neck pain / shoulder pain / back pain
What causes eye strain?
- Looking at digital device screens for too long
- Staring at the screen without pausing to rest your eyes
- Being exposed to overly bright screen or glare
- Blue light
- Lack of sleep
- Being exposed to dry moving air from a fan, heating or air-conditioning system
These are most common causes for the majority of people, but not everyone is the same and some can experience eye strain triggered by:
- Pulse width modulation (PWM)
- Graphics driver
- Temporal dithering
- Blurry fonts / anti-aliasing
- OLED screens
How to prevent eye strain?
There is a couple of usual things you can do to minimize it.
- Limit your time in front of the screen
- Take frequent breaks
- Use blue light filter/night mode
- Use computer glasses
How to get rid of eye strain?
For many the easiest solution for digital eye strain will be to replace the culprit device with a different one, whether it's a smartphone, laptop or tablet, each device has different parameters and many people find that certain devices will not give them any symptoms after hours of usage, others will trigger eye strain or headache after a couple of minutes.