Ask HN: How do you prevent eyestrain with daily computer use? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent eyestrain with daily computer use?

#51

Post by falcolas » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 8:54 PM UTC

daneel_w wrote: post #33

Wear terminal eyeglasses and keep the screen at least 1.5 meters away. This type of eyeglasses are not for helping with poor eyesight. They're specifically for reducing strain on the eyes when focusing at short distances for longer periods of time, which is the core of the problem. Before I got a prescription for such - which has completely solved the problems I suffered for a long time - I had to resort to tricks li…

1.5m? ~5' away?

Cripes. It'd have to be a 55" screen for me to use it at that distance.

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent eyestrain with daily computer use?

#52

Post by user5994461 » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 8:56 PM UTC

daneel_w wrote: post #34

user5994461 wrote: post #11

* Buy a good screen. * If you work on a laptop all day, buy an external screen. (Laptop always have small and often a shitty screen) * Adjust the brightness and the contrast. Do a google search to find some colored images with instructions how to calibrate. * Quick rules of thumb, you can always reduce brightness to 50% right away. Modern displays are extremely bright and the out of factory settings are insane, somet…

"Buy a good screen" - so what defines a bad screen in the context of being good or bad for the eyes? LCD screens have neither the clarity problem nor the flicker problem that CRTs have.

Colors, brightness and angle of vision.

Without going into specifics, the shortest way to get a good screen is probably to buy an IPS display (it's barely more expensive). Pretty sure all IPS display are at least okay.

The cheapest displays are TN because it's cheaper to manufacture, sadly that technology has very bad angle of vision, move a feet to the left and another feet and you'll see the image looking different, it also has a more limited rendering of colors. Not great.

Typically you realize how bad a screen is when you try to calibrate it (looking at a few pictures is enough, no need for expensive equipment). With a really shitty screen, you will notice that the display literally cannot render half the colors.

For example looking at a picture with 16 shades from pure white to pure black, the 4 first levels of white look the same.

Typically that's the part where you have to adjust brightness/contrast until it's showing a difference. If you have a really shitty screen, there's no settings where half the colors will render. The example above being extremely skewed toward bright white will slowly destroy your eyes, being too bright and removing details/contrasts.

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent eyestrain with daily computer use?

#53

Post by dvdyzag » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 8:56 PM UTC

URfejk wrote: post #3

Use f.lux, redshift or some other alternative. You can thank me latter.

I run "redshift -O 3500 -b 0.7" as many times necessary.

To reset: redshift -x

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent eyestrain with daily computer use?

#54

Post by oblib » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:13 PM UTC

m00x wrote: post #22

oblib wrote: post #16

I bought a monitor with a "Low Blue Light" button (it's a "BENQ" brand). I didn't buy it because of that feature and had never even heard of it before. My first reaction was thinking it was kind of ugly so initially I didn't leave it on but after a month or so I noticed my eyes were getting strained so I tried it. It is ugly, but it makes a big difference. Now, when I turn off the Low Blue Light mode I can instantly…

Blue light has no effect on eye strain[1]. The sky has about 100x the blue light emissions than your screen. It might be a great placebo effect, or maybe it just decreases brightness of the screen. [1] https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/blue-light-di...

Had you really considered what I wrote you wouldn't have missed this important bit: "when I turn off the Low Blue Light mode I can instantly feel the strain on my eyes. The picture is gorgeous but it's too bright and intense for work."

So, the feature also dims the brightness, and I did this with my other monitors too so they matched the BENQ monitor I said has this feature.

But it's more fun to be dismissive, right?

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent eyestrain with daily computer use?

#55

Post by WillYouFinish » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

Water! This might sound a little weird, but I use a nose spray (any atomizer will do) filled with water and spray on my closed eyes when I feel like it. I started doing this this year and it helped me tremendously. No more eye strain!

Before that I tried EVERYTHING!

* Dark Mode

* Night mode (Flux etc.)

* Changing Brightness

* Changing ambient light

* a few different eyedrops

* Looking away more often

* Sitting farther away from my monitor

* Different monitor positions

* Different monitors

* Sitting less in front of a monitor

* Bigger Text

Nothing helped me. I asked my doctor and he couldn't help me at all. Sprinkling some water onto my eyes? It just works.

(I guess my eyes are just overheating or something? But honestly I have no idea.)

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent eyestrain with daily computer use?

#56

Post by GaryGapinski » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:46 PM UTC

I use a 43-inch 4K TV as a monitor located about 30 inches from my eyes. I've been using such for at least a decade, and would never return to a tiny porthole facing work of interest (such as a laptop, which is comically unsuited to serious, prolonged use).

I do use prescription glasses ground for that working distance and strongly recommend that (prescription lenses).

I recently (four weeks ago) had to replace the monitor/TV and spent more than a short while choosing comfortable typeface, font size, and RGB/BGR pixel ordering.

As some others have mentioned, if one's eyes are strained, corrections are warranted. I do not deliberately practice frequent distance gazing, but I suspect I do so unconsciously.

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent eyestrain with daily computer use?

#57

Post by kiliancs » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #6

Simply make text bigger . 125% DPI or 125% "zoom" depending on the OS/application help with eye strain massively, and it surprises me how few colleagues are willing to try it (e.g. "I can see perfectly, why would I increase text size?!"). Between that and lowering a monitor's brightness to below 50% (often around 35% depending on brand), are my biggest tips. Windows now has a blue light filter built right in (Setting…

This. At some point I noticed that at the end of the work day my eyes were excessively tired more often than not. This simple change of making reading easier by zooming in just a little made a huge difference.

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent eyestrain with daily computer use?

#58

Post by auganov » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 10:17 PM UTC

m00x wrote: post #23

auganov wrote: post #17

Screen time itself shouldn't cause eyestrain. Reading is the most likely culprit. Pay attention to when you're actually exerting your eyes. For example, when trying to read a very small font you should feel your eyes working harder. See if reading a larger font feels easier. But sometimes it could be something more subtle like reading technique. Perhaps you're fixating on words or some details for too long. I hardly…

It's also good to follow the 20/20/20 rule. Each 20 minutes, take a 20 second break and look at something at least 20 feet away (20m works too, for metric users). Having your eye focus at a certain distance for a long time has an effect on your ocular muscles.

Yes. But ideally this should happen instinctively. Say, if you're thinking, it's pretty natural to defocus or look at wherever. Whenever you're not actually reading or looking at something on the screen your eyes should wander off even if it's just for a few seconds.

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent eyestrain with daily computer use?

#59

Post by karmakaze » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 10:18 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #52

daneel_w wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Buy a good screen" - so what defines a bad screen in the context of being good or bad for the eyes? LCD screens have neither the clarity problem nor the flicker problem that CRTs have.

Colors, brightness and angle of vision. Without going into specifics, the shortest way to get a good screen is probably to buy an IPS display (it's barely more expensive). Pretty sure all IPS display are at least okay. The cheapest displays are TN because it's cheaper to manufacture, sadly that technology has very bad angle of vision, move a feet to the left and another feet and you'll see the image looking different…

I don't know how true of a problem this still is. Are most LCDs now not typically TFT/CCFL? Quality still varies, but I haven't had trouble with even cheap displays if you can use the included controls or software to adjust the gamma or dark/light response. I used to use the Norman Koren test patterns[0] before using a Mac with included wizard.

It's likely much more common for people not to know or try to see how much difference settings can make.

[0] http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent eyestrain with daily computer use?

#60

Post by benibela » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 10:22 PM UTC

freeqaz wrote: post #29

burkemw3 wrote: post #19

I got glasses that were focused at approximately the distance my monitor is from my face (~1 arm length). I'm near sighted and the monitor starts getting blurry at just the right distance. I have glasses for nearsightedness that are focused very far out (the common case). Wearing them for constant work at arms length really tired my eyes out. So, I'd frequently work without my glasses, but hunch forward a little to m…

I don't really have any distance issues seeing. I'm technically slightly farsighted. What I do have is an astigmatism. Getting glasses (it was free with my work insurance) made a huge difference in my ability to stare at the screen all day. If you find yourself _ever_ squinting at the screen, go get glasses. Or if you feel your eyes get "dry". They're both likely symptoms of an astigmatism. I can use my computer and…

I have astigmatism and nearsightedness

And I did what burkemw3 did: Astigmatism-correcting glasses only.

But it was very difficult. I went to an optician to buy them, and they told me, I would not need them, so they won't sell them to me. When I am nearsighted, all my glasses should correct nearsightedness fully.

And to make it worse, they were not able to measure my astigmatism. The first one I went to measured 1.5 D cylinder and gave me such glasses, but that was a little blurry, so I went to several others and measured them and then said you have 20/20 vision, so everything is perfect. I finally found one who measured my eyes from scratch without taking the value of the old glasses and then he found 2.75 D cylinder, leading to a 30% better vision than 20/20.

However, some of the opticians had wavefront eye laser scanner. That is a really advanced method to measure directly how the eye affects lightwaves rather than trying different lenses. The devices measured that I actually need a 3.6D cylinder. But the opticians always discarded that measurement, because it was not possible that I had 20/20 vision if my glasses are two diopter too weak.

Anyways, since they did not sell me computer glasses, I bought them online, and just put zero for spherical value of the prescription. Although there seems to be something wrong, since I am always seeing sharper on one eye than the other. I also tried buying a stronger cylinder online to check it out, but that was not possible since the online sites did not sell any cylinder stronger than three diopter.