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Tag: computer screen

9 FAQ’s re the effects screens have on your eyes.

Double vision after time on screen?  

To understand why this happens, we need to look at Binocular vision.

Binocular vision occurs when using two eyes with overlapping fields of view, allowing for good depth perception.

It allows us to see in 3D which is vital for coordination and hand-eye skills.

Depth perception is incredibly important (you wouldn’t be able to catch a ball without it), plus the fusing of two images gives us a wider view.  One eye can give us roughly a 130-degree field of vision. With two eyes, we can see 180 degrees.

However, digital display screens make the eyes work hard.

It’s like a gym session that lasts the entire time you are on screen.  This tires out the eye muscles that are involved with binocular vision, to the degree that the binocular vision stops working as well, hence the tired eyes and double vision.

 

Tired eyes after scrolling?

Let’s look a little more at those poor muscles we mentioned when describing binocular vision.  

 The eye muscles involved in reading and writing are called the extra-ocular muscles.

There are six extraocular muscles.

 

” The contributions of the six extraocular muscles are to vertical and horizontal eye movements. Horizontal movements are mediated by the medial and lateral rectus muscles, while vertical movements are mediated by the superior and inferior rectus and the superior and inferior oblique muscle groups”.

 

Every movement that your eye makes, be that looking up from keyboard to screen, looking from one side of the screen to the other, these muscles are responsible.

And, as we’ve already mentioned, looking at a screen for longer than you should, tires out these muscles, leading to screen fatigue – dry eyes, blurred vision, double vision ( as mentioned above), and headaches.

image of the extra ocular eye muscles
Eye muscles

 

Asthenopia. What does this word mean?

It means eye strain. It’s the medical name used in Ophthalmology to describe the fatigue or tiring of the eyes, usually characterized by discomfort, dimness of vision, and headache, caused by overuse of the visual organs, dysfunction of the ocular muscles, and incorrect refraction.

You will see it referred to a lot in articles about computer eye strain, and it involves those muscles we’ve just mentioned.

 

Is my bright screen damaging my eyes?

In a nutshell, yes.

From one of our blog posts:

“ (eyesight) is effectively disabled by “Glare”. Think of how you screw up your eyes and want to look away at bright headlights in the dark.

If there is also a flickering light which can trigger photophobic reactions, or very high contrast and/or very low contrast that causes discomfort,  this prompts visual stress with avoidance strategies such as looking away,  and natural “adaptations” due to eyestrain will appear.

They must, as your body is trying to defend itself. The warning signals of this will be loud and clear – pain, headaches, blurry or worse double vision, dizziness, migraine, even nausea and vomiting”.

We know more now since the pandemic started, but this quote is from TIME magazine in 2014.

Dunaief says. “There’s evidence that bright light can damage your retinas irreversibly. That might mean staring at a computer screen that is very bright could damage your eyes.” He says there’s also some experimental evidence indicating regular exposure to computer-strength light could be damaging in similar ways.

We firmly believe your digital display screen should come with a warning. 

 

Why do some colours hurt my eyes?

The human eye evolved in nature and is perfectly suited to looking at it and its natural colours. That we can apparently see over 4 million colours  ( some sites say over 7 million), is another interesting fact. But there are colours that  will make some of us look away in discomfort,

This post from social media is a case in point:

“I don’t like bright or flashy colours. I just despise these colours with a strange passion. These colours hurt my eyes every time I look at them”.

Pure lemon yellow is said to be the most fatiguing colour.

Why?

It’s all down to physics and the wavelengths of different colours and how your visual system interprets them.

Again, this is well known, as these two websites show.

 Worst colour combination for designers and this one,

 Eye pain pallet Please do NOT look at it if you know that bright, neon colours cause you visual pain/stress.

 

Can colours cause visual stress?

Yes, as we have seen in the snippet above. And we have an entire post about it and why it’s important to calibrate your screen, not only for brightness, glare and font size, ( all things that can cause visual fatigue/stress if not optimised for you), but glaring colours tire you out.

 

Best background colour to reduce eye strain?

For this, we need to look at colour contrast.

Colour contrast refers to the tone, brightness and amount of text, images and background on a webpage or website.

The simplest explanation of colour contrast is black text on a white background. If you have black text on a pale purple background, you still have colour contrast, but it is to a different ratio than black on white, and your visual system will react differently to it. Some will find it easier to read, others won’t.

And when it comes to colour contrast, you need to let your visual system decide this.

As we are all unique, your visual system is unique, and what works for you will not work for anyone else. Plus, a colour you may love, your visual system may not love it as much if it’s a background colour – for hours.

So, we suggest you find out using our Display Screen Optimiser and find the optimal coloured background for your Microsoft/Windows applications.

It takes just over 15 minutes, has a downloadable theme for Windows, and within the hour you can start to prevent your eyesight from being badly affected by your screen.

 

Exercises/hacks to prevent screen fatigue?

Most of us work with PCs, laptops etc, and despite the advice to not spend more than an hour or two per day looking at one, that’s not feasible in 2022.

 But there are things you can do to mitigate the harm.

The most well know is the 20-20-20 – and we advise this strongly.

The 20-20-20 involves looking away from your screen, at something 20 feet away, for 20 seconds.

There are also apps to remind you to take a break from your screen and we have a list of things you can do now, to help your eyes and prevent screen fatigue/computer vision syndrome/computer eye strain.

 

How far away should my screen be?

 This is interesting, as we have regulations about setting up your office space, the ergonomics of it and how to do it – refer to DSE Regulations 1992. But what about your eyesight? Well according to one post we found, it doesn’t matter how close you are to your screen visually, it matters more about how you feel, and how easily you can read/see the screen. And when you think about how close we are to our phone screens, they can sometimes almost be in our faces.

This means it’s going back to the symptoms we have described so far and taking a break from your screen to let your eyesight recover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colour contrast for visual stress and why it’s important to optimise it.

Poor colour contrast has a cascade effect that few people are aware of.

This is what happens:

  • The colour contrast affects your eyes.
  • Which affects the stamina of your visual systems and brain.
  • Which negatively affects your capacity to sustain concentration levels.
  • Which in turn, affects your levels of cognitive fatigue, efficiency and productivity.

 

Processing (understanding) visual information uses energy. For example, if you work harder to process visual information because certain colour combinations cause you pain or discomfort, you use up more energy, become fatigued and therefore less efficient and productive.

You are also prone to increased error rates and making simple mistakes.

Poor Colour contrast is also visually uncomfortable. It affects the eye-muscle stamina in sustaining binocular/stereoscopic vision close up, and can contribute to early-onset eye strain.

 

 What is colour contrast?

The term refers to the tone, contrast colours, brightness of the background and amount of text and images on a webpage or website, (now regulated by WCAG).

The most basic colour contrast (out of the box setting), is black text on a bright white background. This is considered very high contrast and should be avoided.

But more and more, people are noticing that colours and colour contrast can either enhance or detract from our well-being due to the amount of visual stress it causes.

Bright colours can grab our attention, but they can also cause pain.

Finding the correct colour contrast can enhance access to text.

 

We all have individual preferences for colour contrast, which is why some find dark mode soothing; others can’t stand it.

Computer screens started in dark mode, but due to more and more non-tech users, they migrated to white backgrounds to mimic paper.  However, over the last few years, dark themes have become more popular for several reasons, namely battery power, reducing visual stress and allowing information gathering at a glance – which is easier on a dark theme.

 

Reducing visual stress is extremely important, and more and more of us are learning about visual hygiene when using a digital display screen.

But here’s the kicker. If the colour contrast on your digital screen is not adjusted/optimised for you individually, it won’t matter how many 20 -20 -20 breaks you take because you’ll be re-exposing yourself to visual stress each time you sit down/look at the screen.

If the colour contrast on your screen means your visual system must work harder, it means you work harder, and it leaves you wide open to not only fatigue and low productivity but also repetitive stress injuries. Many are aware of WRULD’s (work related upper limb disorder), and MSD’s, musculoskeletal disorders, but our eyes can also suffer from repetitive strain injuries.

 

For example, how often are you experiencing the following?

Tired, dry eyes. Double vision, headaches, blurred vision, poor focus.

Visual stress

 

If you spend the now average of 8-9 hours a day, looking at a display screen, then chances are you are familiar with at least a few of these, and you will be experiencing them repetitively.

(You are entitled to beaks – take them! ISO 45001 explains work exposure limits. Nigel Dupree explains briefly on LinkedIn how employers are not adhering to this).

 

We believe your computer screen should come with a warning, and your company should be ensuring that your computer screen is reasonably adjusted to suit your needs, in compliance with UK accessibility regulations, 1995 DDA and the 2010 equality act.

 

But how do we know all this?

Because of the development of the workplace and how the pc has become the tool we all use.

If we also look at and understand vision therapy and accommodation therapy alongside this, we get more of an idea of how the digital display screen affects our eyesight.

 

Accommodative dysfunction is an eye-focusing problem resulting in blurred vision to either the up close and/or far away and is frequently found in children or adults who have extended near-work demand – such as the computer/laptop or mobile phone

 

Optometrists define “vision therapy as an attempt to develop or improve visual skills and abilities; improve visual comfort, ease, and efficiency; and change visual processing or interpretation of visual information.”

 

The regulations that have come into place have attempted to mitigate the visual stress placed on the user, but to date, they haven’t done anything to improve it apart from a nod at the distance your screen should be from your eyes.

It’s taken decades of work to join the dots as to why colour contrast is essential when it comes to your digital display screen, but it starts way back when flared trousers were making their debut!

 

  • Late 1970 and researchers noticed “Visual display units (VDUs) have been reported to cause such eye difficulties as eyestrain, visual discomfort, and visual fatigue.”

 

  • 1984, Helen Irlen set up her institute to help those with reading difficulties. She had discovered that colour could help improve reading rates by reducing visual distortions and coined the term Irlen Syndrome. “Irlen Syndrome is is a perceptual processing disorder. It is not an optical problem. It is a problem with the brain’s ability to process visual information.”

Remember –as a Danish gentleman has said – the eyes look, but the brain sees.

 

  • 1992 not everyone had a laptop or mobile phone, but there is a growing awareness that digital display screens need regulations –HSE 1992 DSE regulations are announced. These are more ergonomics based but are a start.

 

  • During the 1990s, Peter Irons brought out his TintaVision methodology for selecting coloured plastic overlays for reading, as did Professor Arnold Wilkins with his intuitive “Colorimeter” for prescribing tinted glasses for reading. They, like Irlen, had seen an improvement in reading and reading speed among those with visual stress once they used the best colour for themselves. (Note – there is still controversy over coloured backgrounds – but this is based on an argument regarding reading speed v comprehension.)

 

  • May 5, 1999: WCAG 1.0 is born. WCAG was created as it was evident that the internet and websites were not accessible for all. Those with disabilities, reading challenges, or even simply not raised with technology didn’t have access to which they were/are entitled.

 

  • 2004 Dupree Screen Optimiser (DSO) was created to help reduce visual stress, and Patent was applied for in 126 countries.

 

  • 2006/7 Researchers dive deeper.  1327 Display Screen Equipment users are studied.  50% of symptoms recorded affected the eyes. Eye discomfort was 9.5%. In addition, 60% suffered from eye fatigue with symptoms including pain, blurred vision and difficulty seeing.

 

  • HSE put together a paper looking at the injuries sustained by DSE operatives. Page 28 lists some research done from 1987 through to 2005, all showing the strain digital display screens place on the eyes. It states – (1) eye issues reported any discomfort – 70%; (2) smarting, gritty feeling, redness – 56% (3) sensitivity to light – 40%; (4) itching – 34% (5) moderate discomfort – 29% (6) teariness – 24% (7) dryness – 20%.”

 

 

  • 2008 – WCAG 2  is published, expanding on the 14 guidelines but placing them into four principles – perceivable, operable, understandable, robust and making the world wide web even more accessible.

 

  • With more technology now in schools, questions are arising about the efficacy of the 1992 DSE regs. Workplace Law’s Health and Safety Consultants – Kate Gardner and Renier Barnard are brave enough to debate this on YouTube, suggesting “Now that VDU equipment is used widely in schools, the workplace and for leisure, there needs to be a change in attitude and culture so that DSE is used effectively, healthily and sustainably, without causing long-term ill effects.”

 

  • 2014. Research regarding computer vision syndrome/screen fatigue is coming to the fore, most noticeable amongst students. “Among engineering students, the prevalence of CVS was found to be 81.9% (176/215), while among medical students, it was found to be 78.6% (158/201). In addition, a significantly higher proportion of engineering students, 40.9% (88/215), used computers for 4-6 h/day as compared to medical students 10% (20/201) (P < 0.001).”

 

  • 2014. Professor Wilkins, the inventor of the Colorimeter, gives a TED talk aptly titled Disturbing Vision. In his talk, he explains how our visual systems that developed in the natural world face problems and discomfort processing some patterns and images found in the modern world, especially black text on white backgrounds and flickering images.

 

  • 2014 The DSO  is upgraded to include online iteration.

 

Researchers now begin to look at the cumulative effects of poor lighting, glare, and computer vision syndrome/screen fatigue in the workplace, which now (2022), due to the pandemic, includes working from home on a device that’s not been adjusted since it came out of the box!

 

Both Screen Fatigue and Computer Vision Syndrome describe the same symptoms – those of: “eye strain, dry eyes, headaches, overall tiredness with reduced productivity, blurred vision, and often includes other musculoskeletal disorders, e.g. a sore, stiff neck, from being unable to sustain an ergonomically comfortable posture while struggling to see clearly“.

 

These symptoms are becoming more and more prevalent, though HSE states that they are short term only and resolve once you stop looking at a screen. 

 

  • 2015 We begin to understand more the effect that light has on the body – more specifically in the work environment. Eyes are designed to use light, not look at the light. Glare causes a physiological response in the body, and it’s not a good one.

 

 

  • 2016 The DSO is granted a patent in the UK

 

  • 2017 A safety alert is issued by the Health and Safety Executive due to: “evidence of non-compliance in the area of Display Screen Equipment (DSE) assessment as required by current legislation. The purpose of this Safety Alert is to highlight the importance of ensuring all workstations are assessed. B BACKGROUND: A variety of ill-health symptoms have been associated with work at DSE, including musculoskeletal disorders, mental stress, and visual fatigue.

 

  • We see the public health messaging of how damaging our addiction to our mobile phones can be, especially for the young.

 

  • 2018 – WCAG 2.1 – building on the guidelines published in 2008, and now includes mobile devices.

 

  • 2018 also sees a Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers presentation discussing the history and changing opinions of daylight and myopia in school children. The presentation charts the ‘fashionable’ views of the time and how they have swung to and fro like a pendulum.

 

  • 2018 – UK Gov Accessibility Regs for Public Sector Bodies are published, though they appear to exclude secondary and Further Education, they do however include University Compliance.  These regulations were due for implementation in Sept 2020 but were missed due to covid. However, the website has been updated this year, and more guidelines have been published for mobile apps.

 

 

  • 2019 Jonathan Hassell from Hassell Inclusion plays an important role contributing to ISO 30071.1 following up on the work of  WCAG 2.1 to help designers and organisations build more inclusive software/systems.

 

  • Colour contrast is coming more and more to the fore, with excellent presentations describing the importance of colour contrast for branding and accessibility – they are not mutually exclusive.

 

 

  • ISO 45003 is the first global standard giving practical guidance on managing psychological health in the workplace. It guides psychosocial risk management as part of an occupational health and safety management system.

 

Bringing this all together.

We have a timeline showing us the harm that digital display screens can do to our visual systems and bodies. We have a timeline of the guidelines and regulations put into place to try and mitigate those harms.

We don’t have too many solutions that are implemented and enforced,  hence the alert put out in 2017.

Digital display screens damage our eyes – they tire us out and reduce our productivity. This is a given.

This is why the Display Screen Optimiser was created.

With vision therapy in mind, its inventor joined the dots before the rest of us and realised that by changing the background colour on your screen, you could mitigate some of these harms, reduce fatigue, calm the visual systems and maintain productivity levels.

In 2021/2022, life is spent online, through a screen, and it’s up to each one of us to protect our visual systems that interpret that life for us.

 

In his own words: The DSO produces an immediate response in terms of colour sensitivity providing stimulus enabling the visual system to converge on the subject synchronously, widening the field of vision, whole word recognition, and improving or reducing the stressors linked to fixation and saccades when reading.

 

Essentially it helps the reader/user to focus and reduces visual stress.

 

 

 

 

 

What can I do when ‘don’t do as I do, do as I say’ is dismissed by my children, as clearly, I’m spending as long on screen as they are?

Hmm, good question.

Years before covid arrived on our shores, the WHO classified a global pandemic of a different kind.

One of Display screen users’ 3D vision loss.

A few years later, in 2018, regulations were released to help mitigate this 3D vision loss, in the guise of WCAG 2.1 Colour Contrast Validation Standard for e-learning & websites. (HSE RR5612007)

It was created to recognise the 2007 statistics of 58% of those using digital display screens in the workplace presenting with a range of visual and physical repetitive stress injuries, often referred to as MSD’S – Musculo-Skeletal Disorders.

In 2020, MSD’s which are conditions affecting muscles, nerves, tendons, joints, cartilage and spinal discs, often caused by repetitive stress injuries and adaptations, often caused by manual handling and Display Screen Equipment use – have persisted as the second highest cause of ill health’.

The number of children now presenting with 3D vision loss has skyrocketed and is linked to overexposure to the near and close up, prolonged periods of display screen use, coupled with lack of time outside in natural daylight.

So, it’s not without reason that wellness and health experts are screaming at you to put your phone down, your laptop away and “disconnect” and want you to do the same for your kids.

No one anticipated the 2020/21 pandemic and how that would increase screentime.

Yet here we are, and still today, no one in ‘power’ mentions the pandemic is increasingly disrupting children’s eyesight, in effect mirroring the visual repetitive stress injuries seen in the workplace.

We know the addiction to social media is endemic (it’s designed to be).  Netflix got many of us through lockdowns, and zoom was essential for family contact and work. But what if reducing screentime or exposure control is not an option?

We’ve all read the articles about reducing screen time for your children, but what do you do when life is lived online or through a screen, and you can’t reasonably reduce the amount of time online?

According to a recent study, the incidence of ocular problems has dramatically increased in line with the continuous rise in digital media consumption.

An estimated 49.8% (4.8 billion) and 9.8% (0.9 billion) of the global population will have myopia or high myopia.

Myopia is short-sightedness. But it’s more than simply wearing glasses because distant objects appear blurred. It’s also about distance and depth perception.

Which impacts the way we live our lives.

It’s not able to see loved ones faces at a distance. Driving becomes more challenging, and navigating life becomes more difficult and expensive due to eye checks every year.

But children were learning online before 2020, and with digital literacy programmes sponsored by Apple, computers have been steadily making their way into schools. Then, with the pandemic, online schooling became the norm.

Preschool? Screentime is there, too, with a third of preschool toddlers having their own tablet.

UK  children spend an average of 23 hours a week online or looking at a screen.

UK adults spend over 5 hours a day – and we don’t believe this solely refers to the time at work.

Digital display screens are here to stay, so we need to become savvy about mitigating the harms they do because exposure control alone, limiting time online, is challenging.

So, we won’t tell you to get your kids off their screens. Instead, we will give you the information to make informed decisions for yourself and your children.

The Eye Science of fatigue is similar to sleep fatigue in terms of triggering the HPA Axis of hormones directly linked to stimulating our stress responses.

This means it activates the survival fight, flight or freeze reactions to a real or perceived threat.

In adults, this activation can result in cyclical behaviour.

For example, knowing you can’t reduce the stressors/fatigue related irritability in the workplace, you go home in a mood, too often self-medicate, unwind while still over-stimulated by staying on-screen, and then can’t sleep—the cycle repeats.

Translate this behaviour to children, and they come home moody, slump in front of the pc, and stay up watching videos or playing video games, messaging friends, and can’t sleep.  The cycle repeats.

So how do you do best for your child, knowing they will be online for most of the working week and that it impacts their physical, mental and emotional health?

With less than a couple of weeks to go before it’s ‘back to school’, the first step is to be aware of the school environment and policies regarding screens.

Talk to the school – do they have a policy regarding phone use?
  • Is there one for the amount of online time allowed per session, per day?
  • Do they have enforced vision breaks every 20 minutes?
  • Are they aware of calibrating digital display screens to reduce vision stress and eye strain?
  • Do they know how to make reasonable adjustments – e.g. re-calibrate Screen Colour Contrast, increase the font size, avoid glare and/or ask for help to access accessibility features?
  • Ask too about their school accessibility policy and whether they actually have an Accessibility Statement. For example, do they have a policy of complying with Accessibility Regulations for e-learning and digital display screens? (Spoiler: it’s been over two years since introduced so they should be compliant).
  • Are they compliant with sufficient ambient lighting policies surrounding day and/or supplemental artificial work-lighting, and are the display screen positioned so free from glare?

The aim is to reduce the eye fatigue that leads to general fatigue and the cycle outlined above.

Kids use their phones in school, and they use PC’s – so teach them how to adjust the screen brightness to reduce glare. The glare from an overhead light or screen makes it much harder for our eyes to focus, which cause the eye muscles to become tired as they overwork – much like doing too many reps at the gym.

Laptops, again if it belongs to your child, adjust the screen performance – the brightness, font and text size to suit them, and of course, get them their own personal DSO themed background colour that reduces the colour contrast.

The DSO reduces fatigue and mitigates against the likes of screen fatigue, which will impact their learning.

We have an entire page dedicated to mitigating the risks of digital display screens, plus a post that outlines 14 quick and easy things you can do today.

Of course, reducing time online is essential; using the 20-20-20 rule of after 20 minutes look away for 20 seconds, at something 20 feet away is a must, perhaps you could pass this onto your kid’s school too?

Schools will have a lot o their plates in 2021,  the attainment gap is widening, and some now say children from more deprived areas are a good 22 months behind their more affluent peers. However, further damaging eyesight and increasing stress for children due to poorly calibrated screens don’t need to be part of the issue.

If you’ve reached this far, this video might be worth your time.  We are addicted to our smartphones; we miss out on human interaction when we’re online, and perhaps we can all benefit from turning off the devices now and then?

Ultimately, it’s the human interaction, interpersonal relationships in person or on-screen that is essential for children’s inclusion, growth, learning and development, not their smartphones.