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Computers, Long Hours and Vision Problems?
msid asks: "I have been computing for almost 10 years, starting back in 1996 when my father bought me my first computer. In the process, I fell in love with computers and got stuck with them. The last year though has been a real challenge for me. I sleep 5 hours, in average, per day and I spend more that 15 hours in front of my laptop's monitor (a 17" TFT Widescreen), either programming or reading. I have never had 'problems' with my vision up until now. Do you have a specific way of using light sources in your workspace? I have heard of special glasses for computer users. Should I use them or not?"
"A week ago, I checked my eyes and I found 0.25 astigmatism in both of them. They told me that this is not necessarily a problem, and it is mainly due to the intensive computer work. The actual symptom is that I lose my concentration more easily now. Also, the lighting of the monitor is killing me, especially when combined with a white background. Since I am willing to continue working in the same pace that I do now, what do you propose? Is there a habit that you follow to relax your eyes? Is there a way of preventing vision problems?"
IANAO, but IMHO extensive time in front of your monitor is likely to just aggravate or expose conditions you already had or were predisposed to having. It is always well-agreed upon that the best therapy is to never do the same thing for too long. Your eyes would be happier if you got up every now and then and took a walk-- maybe walk to the deli for some Jolt or Dr. Pepper.
Btw, I've been sitting closely in front of large CRT and FP monitors for long periods each shot for over 15 years, and my vision is perfect. Not enough data to state anything conclusive, but I'd guess it supports
"Ain't I a stinka..." - Bugs
I can't vouch for this, but it's interesting information -- why aren't you googling?
Key quote from above article:
For the record, I've been using computers for LONG hours for over twenty years and haven't noticed any deterioration in my ability to sads lkjasl llksdkl!
I found that dual monitors with different sync rates give me headaches
I've been a regular over at the AVSForums for years -- I'm a confessed home theater geek/snob. A few years ago someone mentioned that they had a light source behind their TV -- just a soft white light. In total darkness, the white light reduced eye tension as it allowed the eye to go from the bright TV to a gradient light to the dark wall, and it also increased the visible contrast of the TV.
I started doing it immediately (Standard Definition) and have always increased my use of it as time goes on. My current theater is a projector, and I have a soft light behind my screen matting. I definitely find less eye strain if I have the light on.
About 2 years ago I tried it with my computer monitor (I'm a dual monitor user on the rare occasion that I'm not using my PDA; PC use is down to less than 5% of my computing time). I can say that I have less eye strain for sure when I use the soft lighting.
I tried to do a quick Google search but my PDA won't let me display any articles that talk about the light behind the display. Maybe someone with a real PC can find one and post a link -- I'm sure I've seen studies backing up the usage of the light behind the display, but I don't have any links for now.
On a tinfoil hat conspiracy sidenote: I was an eye glass wearer for a very long time. My vision deteriorated every year or two it seemed. I stopped wearing glasses a few years back and tried some of the eye exercises (as a friend recommended) and I was able to drop my driving restriction and I pass every eye test I've taken for the past few years -- without my glasses on. Anyone else have similar problems with glasses?
Get a good laser printer. (As far as I know laser is cheaper than inkjet per page, and you get a better resolution.) Print the pages you want to read. Read them with the monitor turned off.
When I spend a great deal of time looking at a monitor, I can't focus after a while. Either the font size goes up or I turn it off and get some sleep or read a book.
Your body is sending you a signal. Pay attention and heed its warnings or suffer the consequences later in life.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Holy Christ. Have you tried a) sleeping more and b) getting outside? Might be a place to start.
-b
myselfmusic
The machine's wearing out.
Accept it.
I am prone to migraines and also have astigmatisms in both eyes. I work 40 hours a week in front of computers and then use a computer at home 20+ more hours a week. I used to wear contacts in high school and I found glasses let me work a lot longer and reduced the number of triggered migraines I got (for what its worth).
-everphilski-
I'm nearsighted and I make it a habit to not wear my glasses when I'm at the computer, the upshot being my vision has actually improved slightly over the years. I also try not to stare at the monitor for extended periods; about every 5 minutes I let my eyeballs to break the lock on the monitor.
Hopefully you can find some of that useful. I'd also suggest looking at this artcile, which contains helpful suggestions.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I've been staring into the screen since 82, and I have perfect 20/20 vision.
Someone once told me, that it's because I "work out" my eyes. When I'm not seated in front of the computer, I'm out in the nature, either hiking or sailing. The eyes supposedly likes to look at things far away as well as close up. Being outside in the wide open should be a great contrast.
I have no idea if that's the true reason, but I thought I'd chip in - maybe someone has similar experience?
i know some people only use laptops, but i never understood such people, especially if you are devoting a lot of time in front of your laptop. if the time commitment is so extensive, then please consider buying a desktop computer. such a setup allows you more freedom and ergonomic choices: changing positions of screen and keyboard and other peripherals, such that you can find the most comfortable angles
additionally, you can change screens, keyboards, and other peripherals without throwing out the core of your workstation. so maybe you just won't help your vision, maybe your spine, wrists, and neck may thank you as well
put it this way: a laptop forces your body to conform to its design. a desktop is forced to conform to your body's design. i think the wear and tear on your body should get more of your respect. so lose the laptop, buy a real computer
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...for your opthamologist.
- AMW
If using an IDE then try changing the background/font colors. I'm in an IDE 90% of the time I'm on my PC (which is up to 15 hours a day). I started having vision problems finding it hard to focus on the screen and read properly. I changed out my white background for a Cyan background and that made all the difference in the world for me. p.s. if in England, then try changing your background colours
Second, turn the screen brightness down to a comfortable level (especially when in a darkened room). The brighter the screen, the harder on your eyes. Likewise, if it's too dark you'll strain trying to read it, but most users don't have a problem with screens that are too dark. Most often users max out their screen brightness without thinking about it.
Third, the light source in your computer environment is important. Laptop screens don't have enough power to stand up to natural light easily. Using it inside, I've found that overhead lights are harder on your eyes than lamps. If you can get a desklamp or floorlamp (you can get a nice one from Ikea for $8) that will be much better than ceiling lighting. Soft white bulbs are nicer on your eyes than bright white, flourescent, or halogen (even though they are environmentally wasteful).
Finally, reading from paper is light years easier than reading on the screen, especially if you have a large volume of text to go through. If you can afford it, and don't mind killing a few extra trees, go ahead and print out long articles and read them on paper. Your eyes will thank you.
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
Just get away from the monitor, preferably outdoors, and sleep more. It is unhealthy to be in front of a monitor so much of the time, so drag your ass outside for a while, every day if possible. You don't even have to work out formally, just walk around for a good while.
What are your other light sources? Natural or Flourescent? Flourescent lighting can sometimes hurt your eyes, because they refresh at a rate different from your display, no matter if it was CRT or LCD. If's a question of the combined frequencies between the display and the lighting. Polarized lenses may help, but I found it simpler to just change the light source back to incandescent when I had a problem with flourescent lighting.
the main problem with using computers for 10 years is that, invariably, your eyes age 10 years.
5 hours sleep !!!!! 15 hours computing !!!! C'mon get a life. Travel, live, see new people, new shores. Sunrise over Rio, sunset in Zakynthos, snorkel off the Great Barrier reef, feel the rain in Ireland. - hey ever tried a relationship with a human being ? Or even the cat ?
Because one day someone might say you can't and these moments will never be yours....
Aye. I've been doing the backlighting of my HDTV television now for about 4 years. Recently, while reading the AVSForums I came across this special light for the purpose called Ideal-Lume.
http://www.cinemaquestinc.com/ideal_lume.htm
So I bought one, and I do highly recommend it. Now, ideally you could probably get something similar elsewhere, it's just a flourescent tube with a 6500k bulb. I guess what makes it nice versus the ones at Home depot, is the cover over the bulb is clear(rather than white), plus it came with a plastic sleeve with half of it blacked out, that allows you to dim the bulb by turning it.
I started doing something similar with my computer, just pointing a light at the wall behind my computer, which keeps the ambient light high enough that my eyes don't hurt. Honestly, this I think is a good part of the key is making sure there is enough light in the room to work, while at the same time not having any glare on the screen. That means lot's of ambient light.
15 hours in front of a screen is way too much -- you'll likely be dead of a heart attack or suffering from diabetes if you find a solution to your eyestrain.
Workout and manage your time better.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I took an ergonomics course (ergonomics is science that basically deals with workplace vs. health issues) during my final year at uni. We've been told that it is not about lights at all.
The problem is that if the eye is focused at one particular distance (computer screen) for too long periods of time (daily), the eye lens basically partially loses the ability to properly focus on distant objects (a distance of say 20 meters or more). This is allegedly irreversible.
I have this problem too. My eyes were always excellent. Now I'm 29 and after 12 years of working with computers, I can't properly focus distant objects.
Five hours of sleep per night is NOT enough. Despite what you think and what you hear from your friends, you need more sleep. From wikipedia on sleep deprivation, "Lack of sleep may also result in irritability, blurred vision..."
Go to bed.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
Use a high refresh rate.
Don't the resolution so high you need the screen up close to your face to read it without squinting.
Keep the ambient light low so you can have the screen's brightness down low.
I use grey as the default background color rather than white.
The last two go together pretty well and I've found them to have a more noticeable impact on eyestrain induced headaches than the first two.
Your dad bought you your first computer in 1996... Does that make you 18? 19? That's right about the time that many genetically inherited vision problems start to kick in. You may even have been slightly myopic for years but had an astigmatism that compensated, and now your myopia is getting severe enough to be noticed.
Rather than blowing a ton of money on some ergonomic crap, just go see an eye doctor. They'll be able to tell you without any doubt what has caused your vision problems and how to deal with them (probably corrective lenses).
Welcome to the beginings of old age.
Mod parent up. This sounds like sleep deprivation more than anything. If you're only getting 5hrs of sleep per night then holy cow, of course you're going to have a hard time concentrating. Duh! Try unplugging for a while, taking breaks, and maybe, you know, getting a life and a girlfriend?
Damien
I have worn glasses since I was 8 years old, and in college, I started wearing contacts regularly. In seven years of engineering, my prescription has not changed.
However, I have seriously re-thought how I prioritize my work and social lives, and I no longer spend as many hours at the office as I used to. The surprising part of this is that I now get more work done. Your productivity goes down the longer you work more than forty hours at a time. By limiting my time at the office during all but the most critical of project crunch times, I'm able to focus better, and make fewer mistakes that require rework.
Also, almost all of my recreation takes place away from the computer now. (Who needs games when you have a motorcycle.)
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
you insensitive clod!
Free MacMini
That's only true if you're moderately short-sighted, and can still manage to read the words on the screen without correction.
If you're as severely short-sighted as I am, you'll end up hunched over the keyboard with your nose an inch away from the monitor. That can't possibly be good for you.
Have you read the Moderation Guidelines Addendum?
I whack myself on the head with a hammer 25 times a day. For some reason I now have a hammer shaped indentation in my skull. Do any other
-- SIGFPE
Your problem is that your body isn't accustomed to being in front of the computer so long.
:) Oh yeah, and beware of the cat.
But don't worry! I have a friend who might help you - he found out how to stay connected 24-hours a day! Log in at the CC network's BBS, and ask for Tsukasa. Good luck!
P.S. There are some side effects of using his method, but don't worry too much about it, you won't even feel them.
...the fact that you're 10 years older?
We do age.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
Yes, get a sex partner. Then you'll quit spending so much time with the computer.
I've been a programmer for 10+ years. Over the past 3 years or so, I've had a red-eye problem that I blamed on all the hours in front of a crt. It was only minorly irratated/itchy, but it got really red and bloodshot - my right eye only. I got tired of looking like a b-movie monstor, so I finally went to an eye doctor who gave me some pretty strong prescription eye drops that helped a little, but definitly didn't take care of it.
:)
About 5 months later, I got on a serious health kick, abandoning my couch potato ways, I started to run daily, take a multi-vitamin, and in general just really started taking care of myself. I lost about 30 pounds in 20 weeks. [Yeah!] And unexpectadly, my red-eye problem cleared up too! I'd been taking a perscription eye drop daily, but I've been off of that for at least a month now, and my eyes are nice and clear.
My advice, first thing is make sure you're body is in good basic shape and conditioning, it's amazing how many things work better for me now than before. [Yeah, that too!]
I know you're being funny, but here are some interesting tidbits on reading I thought I'd share.
* It's not so much reading as in reading at improper light levels. Too bright, your eyes get tired. Too dark, your eyes get tired. I think that's why, as a culture, we tend to read mostly in the early morning or evening. It's when it's not too dark, you have your lights turned on at home, and the light level is just right.
* When you're reading, you don't have to look so busy. Unfortunately, it's hard to find good books that relate to work that are fun to read. But with printouts, no one can tell if it is work related or not.
* My co-worker has a dad who has his secretary print out web pages. He'll read them, and then mark what he wants to buy or get more details on. The secretary will then give him the additional information he wants. It's a clunky, slow, way to deal with the internet. But it was interesting that people out there are actually accessing the internet this way. If I had a secretary, a great deal of his time would be spent searching the internet and printing up things of interest for me.
* There was a Korean scholar from a long time ago (I think he is on the 1,000 won bill) who read using only one eye. His idea was that by using one eye for the first part of his life, he would preserve his other eye for the later part. I don't know how well that turned out there. I figured he died before his one eye gave out. Otherwise, apparently he was a smart, if eccentric, guy.
* One thing I love doing in my books is writing in them, especially if they are of the reference variety. I hate PDF because I can't mark it up with my PDF browser. Same for HTML, except you can download that and edit it some. Does anyone know of a tool or a format which encourages people to annotate and mark the text up, if not just for their own reading? There are some neat ideas out there, like Wiki, but they're still rather clunky.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
You're only getting 5 hours of sleep a night?? And you think there's something wrong with your monitor or glasses?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I'm not an expert, but I read that sitting in front of a monitor for a long time has (at least) two effects on your eyes:
- you blink less often which dries your eyes. This in turn allows bacterias and things like that to enter your eyes, causing deseases.
- you fixiate a near point (your monitor) for a long time, so your eye muscles have to work very long. A muscle contracted for an extended period of time changes from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism that produces acid in the muscle.
You should avoid both of this by
- training yourself to blink often (wasn't there a slashdot story about a program that generates stimuli that after some training make you blink automatically ?).
- Relax your eye muscles from time to time by looking away from your monitor and fixiating a far point (for example the sky if possible).
A program like workrave might help, not only your eyes but also your hands/arms to avoid RSI.
Please correct me if I'm wrong about this, as I said I'm not an expert.
Actually, when your optometrist/laser surgeon are evaluating your vision to see if you're a suitable candidate for the procedure, one of the key elements that is a factor in making the decision to go forward is the stability of your prescription.
So, I would say, no. If your vision is gradually deteriorating from year to year, this will probably not help you much for long, if at all from a practical standpoint.
My vision was crap beforehand (-5.75 in the left eye and -5.50 in the right -- everything was a fuzzy blur beyond about a foot from my face). It's 20/20 now in both eyes. But going to surgery, it hadn't changed once in over 12 years.
Your prescription will still probably change again as you age, even after the "permanent" correction. Upshot being, you'll probably need reading glasses once your eyes go through their next big change, which according to my optometrist is somewhere in the mid-forties to -fifies for most people.
That said, it's still worth every penny, if you can get it, for all those years of unaided viewing, IMO.
But don't take my word for it. Talk to your doctor, there may be something they can do for you. If nothing else, they may be able to surgically correct your eyes to the point where you can go without glasses for a few years. If not, you may be able to at least scale back to much thinner, non-Coke-bottle lenses after you get zapped.
If you never make mistakes, it's probably because you're not doing anything.
> Also, the lighting of the monitor is killing me, especially when
> combined with a white background.
Yep, that'll do it. White backgrounds are distilled evil. You don't notice it so much on paper (although, even there, the cheaper, more yellowish paper used for mass-market paperbacks is easier on the eyes over extended periods, and even the dull white of mass-market hardback fiction is not as taxing as the blinding-white of textbooks and such), because the paper is only reflecting whatever light is shining on it, and you don't have to use a high-wattage halogen lamp all the time.
On the screen, though... if you're going to be spending *that* many hours in front of it, you want to go with a low-contrast (or possibly medium-contrast), light-on-dark setting, rather than high-contrast light-on-dark. The traditional amber-on-black used by a lot of dumb terminals is pretty decent on the eyes, but I've found that wheat on dark slate green (something like #FFE6BC on #294D4A) is even better. Set your system colors to this (if you use GTK, the eMaCs theme will do; for Qt or Win32 you can just set the colors directly) for at least a week, and then see if your eyes are doing better. You will also want to set your terminal emulator to use the system colors, and your web browser (and turn using the page author's colors off, so that *all* pages use your colors). Most reasonable applications will just pick up the system colors and use them automatically, e.g., any vaguely recent version of OpenOffice will just automatically use them (on the screen, by default; on paper your documents will still come out black-on-white, as you would want, and of course if you specifically change the color of anything, it appears in the color you specify).
You will *occasionally* have to work with white backgrounds, e.g., when doing image editing, but unless you're doing that sort of thing for a lot of hours, it isn't such a big deal, although after a few years of using softer colors you may eventually get to the point where you physically recoil at black-on-white.
Also you should try to sleep a little more.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
As someone with eye troubles since the first grade, and who now can't even read the big E on an eye chart...
Liquid Crystal Displays are enormously more gently on my eyes than are CRTs. So much so that at work I use a 14" LCD rather than a 27" monitor due to the strain from the monitor. If you do have CRT ensure the refresh rate is pretty high like 75Hz or up.
I definitely agree with LCD's help ing eye strain, and also turning the brightness down helps.. but those are personal preferences.
As far as science, my eye doctor told me that looking at close up things (e.g. reading a lot, or working on a computer) can cause two problems depending on a person genetic predisposition. in people like me: 1) astymagtism and near sightedness as the muscles pulling on your eye to focus on close up things cause your eye to deform or in other people 2) far sightedness as the muscles strain causes the muscle to stretch out and they loose their ability to focus close up over time. #2 is far more commone, and happens to most people as they age.
He proposed four things... 1) use large fonts 2) set your monitor about 30 inches away from your face 3) reading glasses that make you a little far sighted to allow your eyes to focus on close up things with less strain. He said that reading glasses don't have to be a prescription for people with normalish eye sight and you can pick them up at drug stores and at walmart and such. 4) always use lots of light in your work area.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Well, 5 hours per day is kind of borderline -- some people are fine on 4-5 hours per day, others need 7-8 or more to be productive.
Personally, I've found that if I sleep less than 5 hours I'm tired, but if I sleep more than 6 hours I'm also tired or even have a headache (at 8 hours, I often have a headache). So, over the years of working an 8-5 I.T. job, I've found the best middleground for sleep is getting to bed by midnight, then up by 6am -- with that much sleep, I'm always ready to go. It also allows me to go to bed a little later or get up a little earlier if I want to for various reasons.
Years ago before I was in I.T., I was in the artillery in the U.S. Army. Artillerymen are *required* to stay awake for 72 hours straight on a regular basis as part of our duty (have to be prepared for fire missions for long periods in a time of war). So, I learned to go to sleep very quickly (it takes about 2 minutes for me to go into snoring mode according to my wife), and I'm pretty quick to get up in the morning.
Also, my first two years after college I worked 16-20 hours a day, 5-6 days a week, because I had 2-3 jobs while I was getting established (like most techies, it took me a couple of years to find a *good* job after I got my degree).
So, I have plenty of experience with sleep deprivation. I can tell you first-hand, if you're staring fairly constantly at a computer screen for 15+ hours per day, every day, your vision will be affected. That really depends on how you're using the computer, though. I've been using computers for 16 hours per day for over 15 years, but I take breaks every 15 minutes or so. Sometimes it's walking around, sometimes just talking to people, sometimes reading manuals, or whatever.
I've sometimes gone for 8-10 hours playing a game (WoW or Civ immediately come to mind), and if that's the kind of non-stop computer usage you're doing for 15 hours per day, you've got to change it or break it up somehow.
I get about two to three hours sleep per day cycle, and I'm perfectly fine.
Apart from the odd hand convulsions.
Plus the inability to concentrate.
Slurred speech.
Lack of spatial awareness.
Irritability.
Yeah, I think I should really get more sleep, on the other hand I can still maintain top positions in all my classes with this amount of rest. However the fact I rest *in* school doesn't help either.
I'm more than certain I have problems, but at what age does one normally lose the ability to function without a solid six hours sleep a night rest?
I think I should also google at what point sleep deprivation turns into clinical insomnia. Oh well, no way that I'll have time to sleep now!
``Marcel
Some people -do- do fine on five hours a day. I'm one of them, in the summer.
For most of the spring-to-fall period, when our days are well over 12 hours long (and slightly over 16 hours in early July), I need about half the sleep I do in the winter. 4-5 hours, tops, and I generally wake up. It's very hard to fall asleep before midnight or 1am, and when I do, I usually wake up around 5am. Sometimes I manage to sleep longer (6-7 hours), and I feel like complete crap for the whole day.
In the winter, our days dip to just under 8 hours long (living at 51 degrees North is fun!), and I need a lot more sleep. 8-9 hours, often 10. I've tried going with less, and always feel awful the next day. I can often sleep 12 hours in December and feel great the next day.
When I was younger the winter didn't affect me much. I used to experiment on myself for months at a time, and I found I was far more alert and at my "peak" with around 5-6 hours of sleep each night, year round. Getting any more didn't help, and in fact usually made me become drowsy later during the day (and yeah, I did this for a few months at a go just to see what would happen).
Everyone's different, and contrary to conventional wisdom there is no magic amount of sleep for everyone. There isn't even a magic amount for any given person, as it depends highly on what you're doing, stresses in your life, diet, exercise, and a million other factors.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
High contrast colors, a dark background, and a large font really help me.
At least, they prevent my eyes from feeling tired and irritated after a day on the computer, and I've been headache free for years. (Don't know if it has any bearing on long term vision problems.)
On the other hand, I've occasionally borrowed friend's computers and felt my eyes fizzle and become sore in minutes. Any time I look at small text in black on a white background, it bugs me. (Don't even get me started on semi-transparent terminals. Why on earth anyone would want to turn down the contrast on their terminal and then past a bunch of distracting stuff all over the text is beyond me.)
I generally make the text large enough that i can easily sit back forty inches or more from the monitor and choose high contrast combinations (slightly off-white or bright green on black, white on navy blue or magenta, etc.) I also avoid anti-aliased fonts, but that's mostly an esthetic choice. In general, I find that if my font is so small that anti-aliasing is useful, it's *too* small to be comfortably read anyway.
Cutting overhead light helps too.
If you swear, and I mean the oath kind, never, ever to play an online game, be it a combat simulator or virtual world, your eyesight will return, your S.O. will come back to your loving arms, your pickup truck will eventually get fixed, and you can get your old job back. Wow, I sound like a country music album, but played backwards.