[arbuge]

"From the American Academy of Ophthalmology[1]: "Staring at your computer screen, smartphone or other digital devices for long periods won’t cause permanent eye damage, but your eyes may feel dry and tired.""

I always believed this myself but I wonder what kind of research has been done to back it up. Intuitively, staring at a computer screen for 8+ hours a day for year after year would not seem to be a good thing.

Indeed this article seems to claim different:

"As you sit in front of the screen, your eyes dry out, and you stop blinking. Over time this leads to damage of the eye muscle that is used to focus on far away objects and damage to the tear ducts."

[calebm]

I'm always suspicious of advice from organizations that would benefit from misinformation (e.g. "Cigarettes are good for you" - the Cigarette Industry or "Looking at screens isn't going to cause you to need more eye doctor services" - some eye doctors).

[crazy2be]

This is good advice in general, but seems a bit misapplied here- most eye doctors are likely to make more from selling you unnecessary services now then by subtly lying to you in order to damage your eyes :).