Idly curious as to how bright those of you who suffer from eyestrain have your screens?
I have pretty decent eyesight. Pin sharp at long range although, now in my mid-fifties, my minimum focussing distance is longer than it used to be. I always say, I'll wait to get glasses until my minimum focussing distance is longer than my arms!
I've never experienced eyestrain when using a computer, even for long periods at a time. But I usually have my screen pretty dim. usually about 3 dots on my MacBook [as a reference for you mac users]. Which, most of the time is about the same level as the ambient light in the room around me.
Old artist's trick: If you almost close your eyes and just squint through the tiny slit left, you can judge the relative brightness of objects around you, without shapes or distance getting in the way. When I do this, my laptop screen doesn't show as being any brighter than the walls, floor, furniture etc. around me.
I'm wondering if people who suffer from eyestrain have their screens set far too bright. ie. much brighter than their surroundings. So that they're effectively staring into a lamp for hours at a time.
My girlfriend [who wears glasses] has her laptop screen on almost full brightness all the time. When she hands me it to show me something, I actually find it painful to look at, the screen is so dazzling. Conversely, if I want to show her something on mine, I have to bump the brightness up all the way, or she complains she can't see it properly.
Incidentally. Counter-intuitive as it may seem. Apparently bright sunlight is really good for the eyes. Something to do with the particular wavelengths it emits, if I remember correctly.
I can guarantee that it was not an advertisement. At least not a paid ad. I just enjoyed the application. So when it's free you might as well share with people spending the day on-screen like people on HN.
PS: For the title I edited it very quickly after the submission :-)
I solved my eye strain by dimming my screen, putting a screen protector and using sun glasses. The sun glasses part sounds a bit silly and I probably should use real "hacker" glasses but they seem to work fine. I'm not sure exactly is there UV light that the glasses are blocking or is just the regular light that causes my eyes, after a long session of programming, to get blurry.
But anyway this setup has really reduced my eye strain and I also fall asleep easier.
EDIT: And to be exact, I had all of the sudden serious eye strain at the time when I started using these. Somehow it had gotten to a point where I couldn't even look at the screen anymore without my head hurting. And I'm still relatively young with normally a good eye sight so do not take these things for granted!
Are they really? I have been debating if to get some but I have read in quite a few places[1] that they are not really useful and so I'm really wondering how much is truth and how much is marketing.
they might be bogus -- mine clearly reflect blue light when I see myself in a Zoom call, and they make ambient light warmer as well, so yours might just not be filtering properly. i think there are a lot of cheap products that don't really do what is advertised in this area.
I've seen those reports as well. I think it will depend on the person, and just because blue light doesn't cause eye disease or not enough studies have been done to test how valid it is does not mean it is not working for some people. It has certainly made a difference to me and several others I know. Just make sure it is genuinely blocking blue light; as I mentioned in another comment, some of these don't actually do what they are advertised to do.
Have dry eyes, associated with screens. Saw a new optometrist, who told me to close my eyes periodically.
I’ve started doing this when I havee the chance, even while typing. Just did it tying that last sentence.
My eye dryness markedly improve, and I no longer need eyedrops. And my intraocular pressure went down a bit.
He had said do it for five minutes while on a work break, but I’ve found closing them for two seconds at a time fairly frequently has been very helpful.
I downloaded it but honestly, it alerted me 5 minutes before. "5 minutes more to focus" - yeah thanks, that is 15 minutes of focus then. I really, really hate such pointless alerts which made me uninstall the app instantly.
It also completely defeats the entire purpose of the app.
For mac it is Electron - and it is just sad. Such simple app can be done in plain Cocoa after taking 8 hour course in Objective-C or even Swift and will probably take <5 MB. Difference in size is probably just compression ratio of distribution file.
The story behind 20-20-20 is actually pretty interesting, take a look!
TL;DR: an optometrist came up with it in 1991, to help corporate workers come up with a quick and dirty rule to reduce eye strain. There's no scientific basis behind it (doesn't prevent worsening vision, etc etc)
I have pretty decent eyesight. Pin sharp at long range although, now in my mid-fifties, my minimum focussing distance is longer than it used to be. I always say, I'll wait to get glasses until my minimum focussing distance is longer than my arms!
I've never experienced eyestrain when using a computer, even for long periods at a time. But I usually have my screen pretty dim. usually about 3 dots on my MacBook [as a reference for you mac users]. Which, most of the time is about the same level as the ambient light in the room around me.
Old artist's trick: If you almost close your eyes and just squint through the tiny slit left, you can judge the relative brightness of objects around you, without shapes or distance getting in the way. When I do this, my laptop screen doesn't show as being any brighter than the walls, floor, furniture etc. around me.
I'm wondering if people who suffer from eyestrain have their screens set far too bright. ie. much brighter than their surroundings. So that they're effectively staring into a lamp for hours at a time.
My girlfriend [who wears glasses] has her laptop screen on almost full brightness all the time. When she hands me it to show me something, I actually find it painful to look at, the screen is so dazzling. Conversely, if I want to show her something on mine, I have to bump the brightness up all the way, or she complains she can't see it properly.
Incidentally. Counter-intuitive as it may seem. Apparently bright sunlight is really good for the eyes. Something to do with the particular wavelengths it emits, if I remember correctly.