Protecting Your Eyes From All That Screen Time
Digital eyestrain is a real thing. And, if you’re under thirty-five years old, you’re 45% more likely to experience it, according to a recent study by The Vision Council, a consumer-oriented group focused on eye health and vision issues. The study found that 8 in 10 Americans suffer from digital eyestrain, stemming from spending an average of nine hours a day with their eyes fixed on screens.
While it’s easy to identify overuse of smart phones, tablets, computers, and televisions as the culprit, it’s also quite easy to make the assumption that our behavior in relation to these screens is not likely to change. So with our eye health, quality of vision, and millions of headaches hanging in the balance, what are we to do about this phenomenon? What follows are some tips to help you deal with digital eye strain, short of cutting back on your screen time.
Take Breaks
Even if you are unwilling or unable to make serious cuts to the overall amount of time that you are spending on your digital screens, you can help your eyes a bit by taking frequent breaks, focusing on something in the distance, off-screen, and blinking your eyes multiple times.
These actions allow your eyes to recalibrate, to take a break from the amount of light (and information) they are processing, and to re-moisturize, as we tend to blink much less often when glued to a screen.
Adjust Your Computer Screens
Enlarging the font your are working with or the level of magnification your web browser employs by default are a couple of other things you can do to reduce the amount of eyestrain you experience while working on a computer. Also, reducing the brightness of screens in dim light situations can help a bit with glare—another contributor to digital eyestrain issues.
Employ Glare Coatings
If you wear glasses, there may be another step you can take to reduce your exposure to digital eyestrain: get an anti-glare coating applied by your eye doctor to your lenses. Glare-reducing coatings or covers may also be available for your tablet, smart phone, and computer screen as well.
Protecting Your Eyes Is as Easy as Walking Away
Now that we’ve gone over how to cut down on your risk of digital eyestrain by taking short breaks, adjusting the output of your screens, or applying special coatings to your glasses or to the screens themselves, let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room. The easiest and most foolproof way to protect your eyes from digital eyestrain is to spend less time on screens. In today’s world, we wish you good luck with that endeavor.