While We Watch

Screens have become a part of our life. Screen of a computer, of a TV and even of a mobile is continuously held before our eyes. They have become our external eyes to look at the world. But in the excitement of looking at those screens, we often ignore the fact that they might damage our natural eyes. Here are some of the ways how that happens, and a few precautions that might be taken…
 
Brightness:

We often forget to make adjustments to the brightness and contrast of our screens. After a while our eyes get accustomed to the factory set values of brightness. It’s often shocking that some of the screens are set at 90-100% of brightness. Many people don’t even bother to adjust the brightness of their mobiles. So… spend some time to know the values at which the brightness and contrast were set in your monitors, mobiles and TV screens. You will feel surprised, that things appear much better and cool when you bring down the values to a comfortable position.
 
Distance:

We have heard a lot of things about maintaining distance while watching a TV. But things have changed a lot; screens have gone through a bit of revolution. Maintaining a distance of 6 feet before a TV doesn’t seem valid for an 80 inch screen! So it’s better to decide the distance based on the size of your monitor. It would be interesting to find that there is a distance prescribed even for watching the screen of a smart phone. Experts say that at least a distance of 14-16 inches should be maintained to watch a smart phone.  If you can’t watch the text at that distance, it’s better to increase the font size rather than bringing the screen closer to your eyes. But a study reveals that people were handling their mobiles with just a distance of 7 inches… that’s right in front of your eyes!
 
Blink:

Most of the people living around the screens complain about the dryness in their eyes.  This happens because, we often forget to blink while we are immersed in the monitor, particularly when we are watching a movie or playing an exciting game. Blinking is an essential routine for an eye. It would moisture the eyes and prevents their dryness. Experts have found out a way for the eyes to be relieved from the stress of concentrating on the monitor. They are suggesting a method called 20/20/20 which means- looking at a distance of 20 feet away from the screen for a period of 20 second for every 20 minutes.
 
Time:

As our lives have grown mechanical, we have become addicted to our gadgets. People are normally seen drowned into their mobile screens. A recent study has shown that people in the countries of UK, US, Canada, Australia and Germany were spending more than 6 hours a day for watching the screens. And that’s just an average! We often take up the mobile into our hands or switch on the computer for some specific task, but ends up in browsing some worthless stuff.  After a bit of recollection, if we feel that we are wasting much time… it’s better to keep our browsing time under control.

Apart from the above precautions, a few more remedies like- having healthy food that improves our vision; wearing glasses that are anti radiant; switching to anti glare monitors; sleeping for enough time… would also let our eyes to be in a healthy state.

--Nirjara