Because of the whole problem with COVID-19 that’s happened in the last several months an unprecedented time in the history of our world. We are now utilizing so much more technology, which has been a blessing. We’ve been able to stay in contact with people that we normally can’t, but it’s caused a lot of issues.
There is something called computer vision syndrome, and many of you are on your computers so much more than before. You’re on the computers for schoolwork, you’re on computers remotely for work, I’m on the computer doing telehealth, and those kind of things are really going to cause eye strain.
There’s a couple things that you can do about it.
One is you want to make sure you have good ergonomics of your computer. You want your computer set at the right height, you really want to have it a little bit below eye level if possible, and you want to have it at about 20 to 28 inches away from you. You want to be careful that you don’t have a lot of glare and you want to also be careful about how much brightness the computer is putting at your eyes & in your face.
The other thing you want to do is the 20-20-20 rule. Every 20 minutes, you want to look 20 feet away and relax your eyes for about 20 seconds. It’s really important to give your focusing system that release. A pixelated version of what you’re reading through a computer is hard on the eyes. The eyes are focusing in and out very quickly. So the other thing you want to make sure of is that you don’t have some two-eyed problems with what we call binocular problems or accommodative problems that may be contributing to more problems with computer vision syndrome.
If that’s the case then you do want to see your eye doctor for specific testing on those types of things. It may not be just any eye doctor you may have to go to a doctor that specializes in those areas to find treatments to help you.