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Tag: computer screen fatigue

What does Screen Fatigue feel like?

Imagine, if you will, feeling as if an invisible force is slowly squeezing your head.

And it’s applying just enough pressure to be annoying but not painful. It’s probably making you feel a bit irritable.

Your head feels tight, your eyebrows are scrunched up, your facial muscles are becoming more rigid, and you have that inner tiredness.

Chances are you also feel uncomfortable in your chair, your body is heavy, and you simply need a break away from the PC as you struggle to focus.

But you can’t leave, as you still have the afternoon to get through with at least one more zoom meeting.

 

Walking to the door and back gives minimal relief, as the symptoms start again as soon as you sit down.

You’ve tried coffee to keep you going.  You have a bottle of water by your side, and maybe you are one of the lucky ones that get to go outside for their lunch and away from the office glare – that glare that no matter how many times you try and readjust your pc, always seems to be bouncing off your over bright screen.

As the afternoon wears on, the tightness in your head begins to build up into a headache, and you know that soon your eyes will start to feel tired and dry. Some of you will feel as if they are burning around the edges.

You start to rub your eyes often; you’re yawning and feel uncomfortable.

You manage to get through the zoom meeting, but you notice that the screen is getting a bit blurry, and by the end of the call, you see two of each attendant.

 

You sit back and try and look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds, but it only brings minimal relief.

And by the end of the day, you are physically drained, mentally tired and want to get home.

Where you might chill with a glass of wine, spend the evening looking at more screens, and then doom scrolling lying in bed until the small hours, feeling drained but too wired to sleep.

And then you get up the following day and repeat.

You spend your time willing the weekend to arrive so that you don’t have to sit in front of your digital display screen feeling frazzled and sore because your screen hasn’t been individualised for you.

 

It is, in fact, harming your wellbeing.

This is what screen fatigue – or computer vision syndrome feels like.

Your eye muscles are fatigued from the screen. A screen that’s comprised of a bright white background with high colour contrasts and probably a decent amount of glare.

This tires the entire visual system that then starts to deplete the body, mistakes are made, and productivity decreases. Still, sleep procrastination goes up, and there you are, on the hamster wheel of screen fatigue, not knowing what’s wrong but knowing things are not right.

If this describes you, click here to go to our self help page and make the adjustments to your screen that we suggest.

Then sign up for the individualised colour contrast validation tool because your body and mind need all the help they can get.

These are a few steps to improving your wellbeing, productivity, and maybe even your sleep. And all in, it won’t take longer than 30 minutes, but they’ll be the best 30 minutes you’ve spent on your screen for a long time.

 

And don’t just take our word for it.

Read a couple of case studies from people that have found a world of difference when they started using the correct, individualised colour contrast background, for them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What’s missing from your screen?

Most of us will know about increasing the font size if needed.

A few might know about reducing the brightness on a standard, very high contrast white screen.

But how many of us are aware of addressing the user operator’s (as in you) “personal, custom and reasonable adjustments for accessibility”?

For example, the WCAG Website guidelines offer us and suggest Colour Contrast Validation.

But what does this mean in real life and in relation to your screen?

How does it affect you?

 

The WCAG describe it as reducing the discomfort of e-learning material or any material presented on-screen using colour contrast as a tool.

Colour contrast is essential, as poorly contrasting colours can cause us physical pain. This is why some people will screw up their eyes and even look away if they find a colour causes discomfort.

Plus, those with preexisting visual impairments, Neurodiverse and Dyslexic suffer a 4-to-7-fold increased risk of eyestrain and early onset binocular vision stress when using a screen, or “the near or close-up”, before they even get to thinking about colours.

 

So, add some colour contrast that’s painful for them, and there’s no way they will engage on screen.

This stark comparison has been found in as little as an average 20-minute task on any standard, unmitigated for best or optimal Colour Contrast Calibrated screen.

But it’s not just the WCAG that is mentioning this.

“Brightness and contrast” are mentioned in Working From Home Guidance along with fostering user operators to adjust “My Computer My Way”, but, interestingly, carefully avoiding the “why”.

It appears they are simply suggesting this small action is “Removing Visual Barriers” to digital exclusion in the workplace.

They are not looking at the possible long-term harms that an unadjusted computer screen can cause.

 

Screen fatigue is simply one consequence.

There are more.

Looking at the “chain of causation” (joining the dots), 30% of teenagers are still leaving education pre or post ’16’ to enter the UK adult population with reading rates of an 11-year-old. There is evidence that this is partly due to difficulty reading, and often when traced back, is due to early-onset binocular vision stress, caused by too much time on the near and close up and not being diagnosed early enough.

Take that to the next level: The economic cost of functional illiteracy is estimated to be not far short of a £1 bn.

The cost of presenteeism (20% lost productivity) is also in the billions, with 58% of DSE Operators experiencing CVS or Screen Fatigue.

Myopic and asthenopic (eye strain) disease is predicted/projected to affect 50% of the population by 2050.

Effectively we will all be one-eyed with the loss of 3D vision.

This all sounds more doom and gloom, yet the solutions are simple and easy.

 

What’s missing from your screen are the adjustments and additions that can mitigate visual stress and screen fatigue/computer vision syndrome.

Reduce visual stress by reducing the brightness, adjusting the screen, and correcting the colour contrast.

And yes, we can help with that.

Do you have screen envy?

(And no, we are not talking artfully crafted zoom backgrounds or the latest, coolest green screen design, we are talking about something else, entirely.)

Years ago, I spent many hours training our outreach “Colour Therapy Practitioners” to administrate Digital Literacy Sessions.

 

This consisted of first popping the trainees on the binocular eye-trace kit, and using them(selves) as guinea pigs, they pretty quickly realised how much effort is required from their eyes / visual system to sustain, complete, or repeat the sequential, serial, fixations and saccades – essentially focussing and refocusing  –  necessary to read fluently.

 

It was experiential learning at its best.

 

Then, not only did I have converts in terms of the learned experience of what it feels like to have easier relatively stress-free access to text but, engaged learners for the remainder of the course who were far from indifferent to the outcomes and impact they potentially had on their clients.

 

That was in the early days, long before developing the technology and knowing how and/or who was competent and experienced enough to create an AI driven, online version, mirroring our practitioner lead administered Dupree ‘Display Screen Optimiser’ (DSO).

 

When I was contracted to work with a company, I was always surprised by the number of individuals participating who were convinced that they didn’t suffer vision stress or eye strain. They were adamant they were fine and were only taking part because well – take your pick, the boss said they had to, they wanted a cream bun and time away from the desk, safe from discovering anything new, or, they were open-minded, while still firmly believing they didn’t have a problem, and this really didn’t apply to them.

 

And it never failed to astonish me how many physically and emotionally reacted to finding their ‘optimal colour values’ as a more accessible and less stressful contrast to the text.

These were people that believed they had no issues working on a display screen, they believed any discomfort they were experiencing was part and parcel of work, and so had never taken steps to rectify them.  As far as they were concerned, any discomfort was normal for display screen equipment operators. They were unaware that they were self-harming.

 

This fact didn’t amaze me, it saddened me then, and still does to this day. This discomfort is often being dismissed as a temporary visual anomaly, and all will be well after a good night’s sleep.

 

So, you can imagine their surprise, as they took the test and went from not knowing how much stress they were actually under, to feeling their shoulders dropping and relaxing, their respiration and heart rates slowing, all coinciding with improved, measurable gains in accessibility or reading rate of the subject text on-screen, as we came closer and closer to their optimal colour.

 

This occurred so often, it soon became normal that post-session, over a cup of tea or as they were walking out the door, those involved would admit to not knowing how stressed they must have been and had experienced feeling butterflies in their stomach when we reached the optimal most visually comfortable colour value for them.

 

Their body knew before they did.

 

Even more surprising for them was that their optimal colour was often nowhere near their favourite colour. (Another reason why our DSO is objective.)

 

Then, of course, there were some adults who, at first presented as poor readers. Having discovered they could read fluently with the right colour contrast, they would then understandably become very angry and want to know why no one found this out when they were at school, convinced their life chances would have been significantly different had that been the case.

 

In this digital age,  which is now considered the ‘new normal’, we are so used to the conventions of dark text on a bright white background, flashing images and stark colour contrasts on websites that we naturally assume there must be something wrong with us.  If we find it visually uncomfortable, sustaining convergence and accommodation (focusing) while reading text on screen, why are we not asking – is there something wrong with the screen?

This should be one of our first thoughts.

 

2021 is going to see an increase in digital use, in education and the workplace ( interesting that this Forbes article cites a safe workplace as the number 1 priority, and perhaps working from home should be included there?) But whatever the latest trends, online is very much here to stay, and this means you need to take care of your eyes.

 

Would you consider driving a new car or operating unfamiliar equipment without adapting it to your needs? Be those comfort, safety, or both. Yet nobody does this with out of the box display screen equipment, so they carry on regardless of any discomfort and then wonder why they are fatigued, depressed and have sore eyes at the end of the day.

 

Our eyes have not evolved to stare at unnatural screens all day.  They evolved for our survival in nature. For muted colours, soft lines, not harsh vertical or horizontal stripes but distant horizons and watching our hands work.

 

Out of the box digital devices need reasonable adjustments from the generic settings, and they need to be adjusted to you – you that is the unique individual reading this post.

 

You will have an optimally synchronous colour contrast that minimises vision stress for your eyes, that also reduces the associated risk of physical stress, related to the ergonomics of your working environment.

 

If you are curious about your optimal colour contrast, you can find it using the DSO – (we only charge £1 to help cover admin costs – and one doubts you could find a decent cuppa or java for that price.)

 

Due to the emotional and physical reactions I’ve observed, for our next stage of research and development, as a therapeutic tool, we are working toward including remote Biometrics Screening in combination with Binocular Eye-Tracking. At present, we are having to depend on body-worn sensors for biometrics but, we hope to achieve remote status in due course.

But here’s the ask from us and why we are only charging the price of a cheap coffee for a product that will change your life.

Your assistance with the collection of interactive anonymised data, will be highly appreciated as this data will not only be used in Proof of Concept, but will go toward getting a head start with “machine-learning”.

We won’t be selling your data to the highest bidder; we will be using it to help people read better on screen.

Would you agree to be the subject of screen envy?

 Would like to boast that your colour contrast background is unique to you, that it’s helping you mitigate the risks of screen fatigue/ computer eye strain/ computer vision syndrome (one wonders what they will call it next), and it’s helping your reading rate and giving you a wee boost in productivity – (around the 20% mark, which is not to be scoffed at).

 

Will you help us to help you, to help others?

 If it’s a yes –   Please try the DSO, then rate and share your personal experience of the DSO, that also cunningly complies with ISO 30071.1, DSE Colour Contrast Calibration –  optimising your screen ergonomics for accessibility and, mitigating the degree of risk linked to vision stress, eye-strain and visual repetitive stress injuries presenting in vision suppression, myopic or asthenopic adaptations.

We look forward to reading your reviews!