4 ms·

While we’re here, lets do a quick eye-related work checklist: 1. Monitor should be arms length away. 2. Brightness should conform to the light in the room. 3.

While we’re here, lets do a quick eye-related work checklist: 1. Monitor should be arms length away. 2. Brightness should conform to the light in the room. 3. Try to get a good bit of ambient light from the side (via a lamp or window). 4. Keep eyes at a 10-15° downward angle on the monitor. 5. Take a break every hour and let your eyes rest for a second. 6. If you have glasses, wear them. Those six principles will go a long way toward keeping your eyes happy!

zengid 9y ago
These are great. Another thing my eye doctor suggested is to practice the 20-20-20 habit. Every 20 minutes, shift your gaze to something 20 ft away for 20 seconds. I'm usually able to feel my eyes releasing tension after about 15 seconds.
- IncRnd 9y ago
  I also use glasses that block blue light. The difference for the eyes is amazing. I should have started sooner wearing them. When nobody is around I swap the glasses for a pair of geeky plastic amber lab protection, which block more blue light than any other solution. Sure, the OS or flux, for example, can block some, but a physical solution is reliable.
  - walterbell 9y ago
    Glarminy has a detailed review of blue light filters, https://glarminy.com/2016/05/06/blue-filter-light-sensitivity/ https://glarminy.com/2016/05/06/blue-filter-light-sensitivit...
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    I've got a blue-blocking coating on my current pair of glasses. I can't say that I really see the benefit, but I do notice all the colors being yellow-shifted and blue/purple glare any time there's a source of light to my side or behind me.
    - IncRnd 9y ago
      I've tried a number of glasses without prescription to test the blue blocking. They are available from the websites (Zenni, EyeBuyDirect, Gunnar, jandsvsion, etc) or from amazon and excepting Gunnar can have the cost no more than $10. The glasses are "hit and miss" with the blue blocking. I don't know if the process is partially manual, but the amount of blue light that gets blocked is not always the same between two pair from the same manufacturer. Different manufacturers use different technologies to block the blue, some of which block almost nothing. Once I got a pair that blocked enough blue light, though, I really noticed a difference in eye-strain and length of time I could look at the monitor. The cheapest and best, strangely, is the plastic amber lab eye covering. Those block far more than any other pair of glasses and work the best for me.
jacobolus 9y ago
Indeed, the friendliest way to position/orient a display is as far away as you can comfortably put it to see all the small details you need to see (the further it is, the less the muscles in your eyes have to work to converge/focus), with the top of the display at or slightly below eye level (eyes are designed for looking downward for close work, and both converge and focus closer comfortably when looking at the lower part of the field of view), and the display tilted back a bit (15°?) at the top. Many “ergonomics guides” (and anecdotally from walking around various tech company offices, the vast majority of programmer workstations, in practice) get this one very wrong, recommending a display with eye level somewhere around the middle of the display, and the display oriented perpendicular to the table. Try to glance around the room at further objects relatively frequently, and occasionally stand up to walk around and take a break from close work. Make sure to also sit up straight, not hunched or slouched, with the keyboard near the torso (the close side maybe half a foot from the belly), and upper arms hanging loosely at the sides. The palms/forearms should be free floating, not resting on any surface. At all costs keep the wrists as straight as possible. Typing should be light and springy. Adjust the tilt of the keyboard so that its surface is approximately parallel with the forearms. A split keyboard which is tented even a little bit upward toward the middle and turned a bit so that the far side points inward relieves quite a bit of strain by reducing wrist pronation, but is not strictly necessary. Unfortunately there hasn’t really been very much large-scale, carefully scoped and controlled, properly conducted/analyzed, anatomically motivated study of keyboard ergonomics. That is, there have been a large number of research studies but almost all of them were garbage for one reason or another. As a result many of the most important conclusions about proper typing style can best be discovered by reading directly about anatomy, investigating proper technique for other tools, and doing careful personal experimentation/analysis. Reading keyboard-specific ergonomics literature does not necessarily lead to healthy recommendations or physical keyboard designs.
- Swizec 9y ago
  > get this one very wrong, recommending a display with eye level somewhere around the middle of the display Maybe this is because I wear glasses and don't move my eyes much (tend to move whole head when shifting gaze because looking through center of glasses works best), but when my monitor is low, it eventually causes strain on my neck and shoulders. It also causes me to slouch a lot as I try to fix the positioning subconsciously. Before I had a monitor with a riseable base, I used to put my monitor on a book or two.
red75prime 9y ago
Does bullets 2 and 3 apply if a monitor fills major part of FOV?
- walterbell 9y ago
  Yes, ambient light affects pupil dilation. You want to avoid focus-locking the eyes to a single distance. It’s better to have the monitor further away so there are other objects in your field of vision, preferably more distant than the monitor.
EADGBE 9y ago
> 6. If you have glasses, wear them. Is that for people who need glasses but don't wear them, or wear corrective lenses (of some sort) all the time but really should use glasses because there somehow better? Seriously, I want to know, being the latter part.
- p10_user 9y ago
  I think it’s the former. Not wearing corrective lenses (glasses or contacts) when needed causes additional eye strain.
- walterbell 9y ago
  Both. Glasses are much healthier for your eyes than contacts. Computer usage = less blinking = less moisture = more harmful with contacts.

zengid 9y ago

These are great. Another thing my eye doctor suggested is to practice the 20-20-20 habit. Every 20 minutes, shift your gaze to something 20 ft away for 20 seconds. I'm usually able to feel my eyes releasing tension after about 15 seconds.

IncRnd 9y ago
I also use glasses that block blue light. The difference for the eyes is amazing. I should have started sooner wearing them. When nobody is around I swap the glasses for a pair of geeky plastic amber lab protection, which block more blue light than any other solution. Sure, the OS or flux, for example, can block some, but a physical solution is reliable.
- walterbell 9y ago
  Glarminy has a detailed review of blue light filters, https://glarminy.com/2016/05/06/blue-filter-light-sensitivity/ https://glarminy.com/2016/05/06/blue-filter-light-sensitivit...
- khedoros1 9y ago
  I've got a blue-blocking coating on my current pair of glasses. I can't say that I really see the benefit, but I do notice all the colors being yellow-shifted and blue/purple glare any time there's a source of light to my side or behind me.
  - IncRnd 9y ago
    I've tried a number of glasses without prescription to test the blue blocking. They are available from the websites (Zenni, EyeBuyDirect, Gunnar, jandsvsion, etc) or from amazon and excepting Gunnar can have the cost no more than $10. The glasses are "hit and miss" with the blue blocking. I don't know if the process is partially manual, but the amount of blue light that gets blocked is not always the same between two pair from the same manufacturer. Different manufacturers use different technologies to block the blue, some of which block almost nothing. Once I got a pair that blocked enough blue light, though, I really noticed a difference in eye-strain and length of time I could look at the monitor. The cheapest and best, strangely, is the plastic amber lab eye covering. Those block far more than any other pair of glasses and work the best for me.

jacobolus 9y ago

Indeed, the friendliest way to position/orient a display is as far away as you can comfortably put it to see all the small details you need to see (the further it is, the less the muscles in your eyes have to work to converge/focus), with the top of the display at or slightly below eye level (eyes are designed for looking downward for close work, and both converge and focus closer comfortably when looking at the lower part of the field of view), and the display tilted back a bit (15°?) at the top. Many “ergonomics guides” (and anecdotally from walking around various tech company offices, the vast majority of programmer workstations, in practice) get this one very wrong, recommending a display with eye level somewhere around the middle of the display, and the display oriented perpendicular to the table. Try to glance around the room at further objects relatively frequently, and occasionally stand up to walk around and take a break from close work. Make sure to also sit up straight, not hunched or slouched, with the keyboard near the torso (the close side maybe half a foot from the belly), and upper arms hanging loosely at the sides. The palms/forearms should be free floating, not resting on any surface. At all costs keep the wrists as straight as possible. Typing should be light and springy. Adjust the tilt of the keyboard so that its surface is approximately parallel with the forearms. A split keyboard which is tented even a little bit upward toward the middle and turned a bit so that the far side points inward relieves quite a bit of strain by reducing wrist pronation, but is not strictly necessary. Unfortunately there hasn’t really been very much large-scale, carefully scoped and controlled, properly conducted/analyzed, anatomically motivated study of keyboard ergonomics. That is, there have been a large number of research studies but almost all of them were garbage for one reason or another. As a result many of the most important conclusions about proper typing style can best be discovered by reading directly about anatomy, investigating proper technique for other tools, and doing careful personal experimentation/analysis. Reading keyboard-specific ergonomics literature does not necessarily lead to healthy recommendations or physical keyboard designs.

Swizec 9y ago
> get this one very wrong, recommending a display with eye level somewhere around the middle of the display Maybe this is because I wear glasses and don't move my eyes much (tend to move whole head when shifting gaze because looking through center of glasses works best), but when my monitor is low, it eventually causes strain on my neck and shoulders. It also causes me to slouch a lot as I try to fix the positioning subconsciously. Before I had a monitor with a riseable base, I used to put my monitor on a book or two.

red75prime 9y ago

Does bullets 2 and 3 apply if a monitor fills major part of FOV?

walterbell 9y ago
Yes, ambient light affects pupil dilation. You want to avoid focus-locking the eyes to a single distance. It’s better to have the monitor further away so there are other objects in your field of vision, preferably more distant than the monitor.

EADGBE 9y ago

> 6. If you have glasses, wear them. Is that for people who need glasses but don't wear them, or wear corrective lenses (of some sort) all the time but really should use glasses because there somehow better? Seriously, I want to know, being the latter part.

p10_user 9y ago
I think it’s the former. Not wearing corrective lenses (glasses or contacts) when needed causes additional eye strain.
walterbell 9y ago
Both. Glasses are much healthier for your eyes than contacts. Computer usage = less blinking = less moisture = more harmful with contacts.