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Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

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Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#201

Post by coldtea »

martindbp wrote: post #140
coldtea wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You wouldn't say reading a book is "staring at paper" would you? Well, ultimately, it is...

Of course, but nobody ever says this. Except when reading was a new thing.

Mostly because nobody (statistically) spends too much time reading books. And because books have (on average) more substantial content than social websites and other such uses of time, so that's a better tradeoff.

That said, some people can (and do, more so in the past) over-read, to the detriment of their social life or even to their health...

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#202

Post by ImprobableTruth »

gowld wrote: post #75
scottLobster wrote: post #6

So a few minutes ago I wrote code for a company, producing economic value. Last night I kept up with family, maintaining healthy personal relationships. Right now I'm engaging in intellectual discussion of major issues with other people. And last night I watched an episode of Mr. Robot, engaging my brain with a stimulating story. And yes, sometimes I just look at animal gifs on imgur. I see no problem continuing any…

How much of that time was caring for your eye health so you don't go blind early?

Is there anything to indicate that excessive screen usage can cause blindness? Especially since LCD aren't that bad concerning eye strain.

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#203

Post by srl »

ryeguy_24 wrote: post #178

Haven't we also gained 34 years in longevity in the last 100 years? So, net net we are good? :) More seriously, what types of activities did screens replace? Was it talking to other people? Physical activities/labor? Reading? Nothing?

I know your first comment is mainly in jest, but... https://www.seniorliving.org/history/1900-2000-changes-life-...

For white folk in the US, even the life expectancy at birth (arguably an inflated metric) hasn't increased by 34 years since 1900. For all people in the US (basically everywhere else, too, I think), that ~30-40 years is dominated by infant/youth mortality getting driven hard towards 0.

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#204

Post by mattkrause »

manmal wrote: post #145
derekp7 wrote: post #18

This article is about the effects of eye strain, not the overall mental health of looking at content on a screen. With that in mind, what is it about a screen (emitted light) that is worse than outdoors reflect light? One item I can think of, is that looking at something with reflected natural light, the iris contracts based on the total amount of light hitting it. Whereas a screen may be brighter than the ambient li…

Screens are optimized for energy efficiency, so their emissions are restricted to a narrow range of visible frequencies. They don’t even really cover the whole range of colors, but mix them by combining RGB, which isn’t the real thing. Eg you can make something looking like violet light by mixing blue and red, but it’s not the same thing as the „real“ violet. Sunlight, however, is a wild mix of broadband EM emissions…

As far as your visual system is concerned, "real" violet (e.g., from a tunable laser) and the "fake" RGB violet are pretty much the same--it's coded as the relative amounts of red/green or blue/yellow almost immediately after the cones.

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#205

Post by jedberg »

jabroni_salad wrote: post #196
jedberg wrote: post #80

Protip for everyone, since I've done a lot of research on this: If at all possible, cut the blue from your screen at all times. I use flu.x [0] and even during the day I set my color temp to 5800K instead of the standard 6500K. You won't notice the change much, but it will make a huge difference on how tired your eyes get. I also go down to 1850K at night (candlelight basically) to both ease strain on my eyes and not…

I set mine to 3800K for 24 hours a day. Even during the day under florescent lights and an open window, if I have to toggle it off for any reason it feels like my eyes are being stabbed with tiny knives. I don't know about the sleep stuff (is that hard science yet?) but I personally definitely staved off eye strain and dry eye issues with f.lux and no other changes.

> I set mine to 3800K for 24 hours a day.

Sometimes when I travel to the other side of the planet but don't update my laptop clock, it goes into "night mode" midday. I can use it but I find it jarring with the natural light.

> I don't know about the sleep stuff (is that hard science yet?)

They have links to studies on the flux page [0] although I'm not sure how much of that is peer reviewed or if the sample sizes are big enough.

I know that it makes a difference for me. My sleep quality went way up when I started using flux, and it goes down when I look at screens without it too late at night (like my not-so-smart-TV).

[0] https://justgetflux.com/research.html

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#206

Post by jedberg »

M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote: post #198
jedberg wrote: post #80

Protip for everyone, since I've done a lot of research on this: If at all possible, cut the blue from your screen at all times. I use flu.x [0] and even during the day I set my color temp to 5800K instead of the standard 6500K. You won't notice the change much, but it will make a huge difference on how tired your eyes get. I also go down to 1850K at night (candlelight basically) to both ease strain on my eyes and not…

any thoughts on blue light glasses? or setting your screens to grayscale?

> any thoughts on blue light glasses?

I tried them. They worked well enough, but I don't like to wear glasses so I stopped. Also I didn't like how they cut all blue light, including the blue from the sunlight. It's important to get blue light during the day to help your body regulate it's sleep hormone production.

> or setting your screens to grayscale?

That's orthogonal. The white part of the grayscale still has blue light in it. Grayscale is good for helping with attention issues, but not blue light issues.

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#207

Post by ipnon »

saalweachter wrote: post #180
ipnon wrote: post #39

"If children get outside enough, it doesn't matter how much they study they do. They don't become myopic," said Ian Morgan, researcher at Australian National University.[0] "Researchers say kids and teens need to get sunlight during the critical years of their development while their eyeballs are still growing. "The mechanics of how sunlight protects their eyes are not clearly understood. One theory suggests that sun…

I'm sure there is a correlation, maybe even a strong one, but I have quite a bit of anecdata to suggest it is not true in all cases. (I grew up on a farm, and spent a helluva lot of time outside, and needed glasses long before my family had a computer; my father would have spent even more time outside than I did, and likewise is pretty nearsighted.)

The link references the rate of myopia in South Korea increasing from 18% in 1955 to 96% in 2011. This suggests 2 things:

1. Myopia is not entirely genetic, because genes for myopia could not have spread to almost all Koreans from almost no Koreans in the span of 56 years.

2. Myopia is somewhat genetic, because myopia existed in a significant proportion of the pre-industrial population.

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#208

Post by groby_b »

Cerium wrote: post #57
groby_b wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eyes usually look at diffusely reflected light, which has a different impact than direct light. A white reflective surface (whiteboard) in direct sunlight is 1.6cd/cm^2. Consumer monitors are ~300cd/cm^2 (I'm not sure how much bearing this actually has on eye health, this is just to illustrate how looking at a monitor and at a piece of paper is significantly different)

I think there is a unit error here. I believe that sunlight on white paper is about 1.6cd/cm^2, while consumer monitors are about 300cd/m^2 (meter not cm). Essentially, you want the brightness to match the environment. http://www.infocomm.org/filestore/display_specs_and_human_vi...

There is indeed. Oops. I'd delete - no point polluting the Internet with more bad info - but time window has expired.

Thank you for the correction!

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#209

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

bityard wrote: post #199
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went through TNG again a while ago and I was struck by how much I'd forgotten, and how I'd kind of lost my way in terms of my beliefs. I grew up wanting to be like Picard, and watching them again reminded me of that.

I grew up on TNG and I'm now re-watching it all with my daughter. The first season is just as rough as I remember it, but I love how much of the core themes and character of TNG they got absolutely right from the very first episode. One thing about the show that struck me is that I'm amazed at how inter-personal communication has changed over the decades. I thought I remembered everyone being a lot more easy-going wh…

It might be part of the TV era, but I imagine having people who aren't constantly on the defensive would fit into Gene's vision of a better tomorrow. If you can assume that everyone in the room is on the same team and wants the best for everyone, you probably would feel less offended by gentle jabs.

Re: Average adult will spend 34 years of their life staring at screens

#210

Post by bdamm »

mattkrause wrote: post #204
manmal wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Screens are optimized for energy efficiency, so their emissions are restricted to a narrow range of visible frequencies. They don’t even really cover the whole range of colors, but mix them by combining RGB, which isn’t the real thing. Eg you can make something looking like violet light by mixing blue and red, but it’s not the same thing as the „real“ violet. Sunlight, however, is a wild mix of broadband EM emissions…

As far as your visual system is concerned, "real" violet (e.g., from a tunable laser) and the "fake" RGB violet are pretty much the same--it's coded as the relative amounts of red/green or blue/yellow almost immediately after the cones.

Not necessarily. There is a lot of analog in the eyes beyond the nerves, and we don't know all the effects of ambient light on the entire eye structure. Even if the neural impulses end up being similar (and I doubt that) the eye as a whole organ may not respond the same way. Maybe that heat energy triggers something in the cornea? We don't know.
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