While it may be convenient to have a smartphone to check email on the go, you shouldn’t use it as your go-to device for reviewing documents, reading long emails, or doing research.
What Can I Do?
Take frequent breaks while working on a computer and remind yourself to blink often to keep your eyes moisturized. Maintain an appropriate distance between your face and the computer screen. A safe range is 20 to 40 inches away. Refrain from holding smart phones up to your face to avoid straining your eyes. If you choose to read books or lengthy blocks of text on smart phone devices, lower the screen’s brightness to avoid eye irritation.
Technology Can Cause Dry Eye
According to CNN, people blink on average 18 times per minute, which keeps eyes refreshed; however, staring at a computer screen or digital device slows down that blink rate, which can dry out or irritate the eyes. It also leads to excessive itching, strong blinking, and can cause grit collection in the eyes, according to LiveScience.com.
What Can I Do?
While the best fix for this is limiting your technology time, for those who work in careers that require spending 8 hours or more staring at a screen, this may not be an option. Artificial tear eye drops can help keep eyes moisturized. And you should practice the 20-20-20 rule, which advises that every 20 minutes, you take a break from your computer screen and focus on a location 20 feet away for 20 seconds.
Technology May Make You More Nearsighted
Staring at screens all day can change your vision, causing you to become more nearsighted. Children who have grown up with iPads and other tablets are spending an average of eight hours per day in front of technological devices, which may lead to a rise in eyesight problems as this generation ages.