[user5994461]

* 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, sometimes 80% or 100%, it's like starring at a lamppost.

* In terms of positioning. Your eyes should be at the level of the top of the screen. Large displays (24" and above) can go quite tall even with the feet at the lowest position, it might not be possible to do that, it's okay if your eyes are only at 3/4 of the top of the screen.

[daneel_w]

"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.

[user5994461]

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.

[karmakaze]

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

[bluedino]

IPS, TN, now you have this pentile shit

[daneel_w]

But neither color accuracy nor poor viewing angle are issues that cause strain on the eyes. Blinding brightness certainly can, but are there really screens these days which cannot be dimmed-down enough? I have a hard time believing it.

[kart23]

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.

[daneel_w]

The problem is if their PWM is too slow, to the point where we actually see the flicker directly, or just barely indirectly (e.g. by seeing a "slideshow effect" when you move a finger back and front against the lit-up display).

Concensus among opticians and ophthalmologists is however still that the main cause for eye strain is focusing your eyes at a short distance for an extended period of time.

[falcolas]

I'd also throw out that a 4k screen is also a good thing, since your eyes don't have to deal with "tricks" to have crisp, clear text to read.

[asutekku]

Low refresh rate. I’ve seen it referenced multiple times to be a reason for eye strain.

[daneel_w]

You're probably confusing this with absurdly low PWM rate on the LED backlight (a minority of screens suffer this).

[falcolas]

Why not both?

Especially if what you're looking at is moving in any way on the screen.

[harlanji]

I always have to throw in the homeless angle, but when people expect me to be able to produce out of the back of a Honda Civic with a ghetto rigged 15A/120W circuit + 30W solar and no tint and priviously no license or insurance (anxiety, ducking cops)... I just smiled and said let me write a book with reasons you’re out of your mind—poverty reduces to physics. I’m doing my best and overcoming obstacles, but yea, there is a cognitive dissonance between universally accepting things like this and then expecting a homeless person to be producing as though they have office space.

Good list tho.