While reading a Forbes article, I found out that Americans between the ages of 13 and 18 spend approximately one third of their day looking at screens. When I first heard this statistic, I had a hard time imagining how someone could actually spend a third of their day looking at mobile or computer screens. However, after taking into account how often teens use technology to keep in touch with each other, stay up to date on social media or news applications, and even take notes; the eight hours teens spend looking at screens daily started to seem more and more realistic.
In this post I will not be attempting to persuade you to look at your cell phone and other electronic screens less frequently; I will simply inform you about some of the effects that staring at an electronic screen for a prolonged period of time could have on your eyes. While doing some research, I found a News Medical Article that highlighted some of the issues that could arise from prolonged screen exposure. The symptoms that stood out in this article were eye discomfort and headaches. According to AllAboutVision.com, there are some easy tips to help reduce eye strain and headaches from computer screens. The first tip is to make sure that the brightness of your screen matches the light levels around you. This comes into play at night when you are looking at a bright screen in a dark room. While doing research, I came across an app for Mac and Windows called “Flux” which will automatically adjust your screen brightness and color based on your location and the ambient light in your environment. Even if there is not strong proof showing that inappropriate brightness directly causes headaches, downloading an app like Flux takes almost no time and could save you time and money in the future. Another tip for reducing eye strain while looking at a computer screen is to increase that size of the text you are reading and if possible, make sure you are reading black text on white background. The last tip to prevent eye strain and headaches is to give your eyes a break. The article stated that a good practice is to look away from your computer monitor every 20 minutes and to stare at an object at least 20 feet away for 20 seconds. This practice is a good way to protect your eyes from accommodative spasm, a condition that locks your eye into one focus.
Because the development of devices which rely on backlit screens is fairly recent, it has been hard to gather information on the long term effects of spending so much time looking at electronic screens. Just think about how some of these tips could save you time and money in the future. Good habits today could protect your eyes later in life.
Sources:
http://www.allaboutvision.com/cvs/irritated.htm
https://www.verywell.com/accommodative-spasm-3422175
http://www.news-medical.net/health/Does-looking-at-a-computer-damage-your-eyes.aspx
Pictures:
http://theseptemberstandard.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/7160239.jpg
This article really stood out to me because I am on both of my electronic devices (my phone and my computer) way more than I would like to be. Some days, I lose track of time and notice that I had been on my computer for a crazy long amount of time. I notice that my eyes begin to hurt and feel strained and my head begins to ache too, just like you said. Also, it is quite a coincidence that right now I am typing up this comment while I am sitting in the dark. My MacBook screen still seems to be too bright for my surroundings but I have since gotten used to it. After reading this post, I will most definitely be downloading the app Flux because it takes no time to download and can be so beneficial to not hurting my eyes!
It is a crazy and somewhat sad statistic to think we are on our screens a third of our day. I can very much relate to the eyestrain as it is actually happening to me right now as I’m reading in the dark. They actually even offer special computer reading eyewear nowadays because this has become such a strange but real problem.