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

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

#91

Post by kart23 »

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.

Some monitors do have pwm backlights which flicker extremely fast, and can worsen eyestrain or cause headaches for some. I've seen it even on monitors that advertise being flicker free.

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

#92

Post by danmaz74 »

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…

Not just reduce the monitor brightness, but also use "dark mode" whenever possible. I read a lot on the web, and found the darkreader extension incredibly useful for my eyes strain.

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

#93

Post by auganov »

hnick wrote: post #66
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…

> Screen time itself shouldn't cause eyestrain. Reading is the most likely culprit. I think this is true, because for me when I'm having a bad eye day I can play games for hours but struggle to read through a paragraph. I had laser eye surgery and almost regret it, my eyes get dry easily now (I seem to get recurring blepharitis which I lessen with a heat pack) and one eye in particular almost always feels like it has…

> I think the text is probably too small but I don't realise because in proportion to the smaller screen size it looks large.

My laptop is 1366x768 and it feels "wrong" to be zooming-in when screen real estate is already so limited. But once you get over the initial weirdness, you'll just keep doing it. Right now, on my desktop, I have HN at 250% zoom. I can make out 100%, 150% is perfectly readable, but 250% just feels great. Also many sites, including HN, have unlimited or very long paragraph widths so zooming fixes that too.

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

#94

Post by rhn_mk1 »

danmaz74 wrote: post #92
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…

Not just reduce the monitor brightness, but also use "dark mode" whenever possible. I read a lot on the web, and found the darkreader extension incredibly useful for my eyes strain.

Dark mode is effectively the same as lowering brightness. If you can lower the brightness to match dark mode's light intensity, it should feel about the same.

There are some sources suggesting that all other things equal, black text on white is more legible too.

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

#95

Post by zwarag »

What works quite well for me is to just take breaks. (I have +7 diopters with astigmatism and all the packages)

On MacOS there is an app called "Time Out" that dims the screen every 20 minutes for 20 seconds. It forces you to just relax for 20 seconds (you can set it up as you like). In the meanwhile you can either look at something that is far away (several meters or a good reason to learn metric), or just close your eyes and lean back.

There might be other Apps for other OSes but if you're into Arduino you can just smack a LED on the board and let it light up every 20 Minutes for ~20 seconds to have a reminder.

Additionally, I take a break every 4 hrs for at lest 20 minutes and go for a walk in the park, cook something, cuddle the cat or whatever.

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

#96

Post by simonebrunozzi »

geocrasher wrote: post #27

1) Don't sit too close to your monitor(s). They should be as far away as they are big, so if it's a 23" monitor, at least 23" away from your eyes. 2) Place the top of the monitor at eye level 3) THE BIGGEST: The 20/20/20 rule. Every 20 minutes, look at an object 20 feet (6m) for 20 seconds. These three changed my computing life forever, and for the better, especially since I'm on a computer 10 hours a day most days.…

> 3) THE BIGGEST: The 20/20/20 rule. Every 20 minutes, look at an object 20 feet (6m) for 20 seconds.

What is this suggestion based on?

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

#97

Post by hnick »

auganov wrote: post #93
hnick wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Screen time itself shouldn't cause eyestrain. Reading is the most likely culprit. I think this is true, because for me when I'm having a bad eye day I can play games for hours but struggle to read through a paragraph. I had laser eye surgery and almost regret it, my eyes get dry easily now (I seem to get recurring blepharitis which I lessen with a heat pack) and one eye in particular almost always feels like it has…

> I think the text is probably too small but I don't realise because in proportion to the smaller screen size it looks large. My laptop is 1366x768 and it feels "wrong" to be zooming-in when screen real estate is already so limited. But once you get over the initial weirdness, you'll just keep doing it. Right now, on my desktop, I have HN at 250% zoom. I can make out 100%, 150% is perfectly readable, but 250% just fe…

> 1366x768

Yeah I think my work issued 14" is too. It certainly doesn't help that something like MS Teams wastes so much space even with 'full screen' active, and the same for various ribbon UIs. But I think you're right I should just give up and zoom.

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

#98

Post by tpoacher »

zwarag wrote: post #95

What works quite well for me is to just take breaks. (I have +7 diopters with astigmatism and all the packages) On MacOS there is an app called "Time Out" that dims the screen every 20 minutes for 20 seconds. It forces you to just relax for 20 seconds (you can set it up as you like). In the meanwhile you can either look at something that is far away (several meters or a good reason to learn metric), or just close you…

Effectively this sounds like a somewhat stricter version of the pomodoro system, which prescribes a 5-minute "physical" break for every 25 minutes of uninterrupted focus.

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

#99

Post by tpoacher »

kazinator wrote: post #80

Use a small font that becomes hard to read if your eyes are tired or dry and you start to strain. I discovered this decades ago at university. For a time, I switched to a large font, thinking naively that it would help with eye strain. But the problem became worse; my eyes became crazy tired, and it became obvious to me why: I could read the text no matter how tired my eyes were. Heck, I could stare at the screen wit…

Hah. You remind me of almost every other intervention in medicine.

I remember e.g. when heart failure was treated with beta-agonists (every doctor at lectures: "It makes sense! The heart is struggling, so we give it a boost!").

Then they did some studies and found that while the heart output increased, people were dying faster. So they decided to do the exact opposite and switch to beta-blockers (every doctor at lectures: "It makes sense! A dimmer candle burns for longer!").

Then they found out beta-blockers made things worse too. I have no idea what they do nowadays, but I'm sure doctors still have a rationalisation-by-analogy explanation for it, whatever that is.

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

#100

Post by vineyardmike »

cambalache wrote: post #82
ajani wrote: post #7

Take a break. Every half hour/hour, look away from your computer. Look at something at a distance. Outside a window. For a few minutes. 5/10 minutes. If you can, reduce screen time. No more than 3-4 hours a day. If you can't, take a computer free day every 2-3 days. This has helped me more than any setting, or app.

> If you can, reduce screen time. No more than 3-4 hours a day. If you can't, take a computer free day every 2-3 days. I think this is unfeasible for a gigantic portion of this site readership.

Dare I say... undesirable even
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