computers and eyes

eurotrotter

hey guys
I have noticed that my eye site has deteriorated considerably int he past few years. I was always short sited, but my vision has deteriorated greatly over the past few months. im doing a computer course in college, and im working in an IT for the summer, where i sit in front of a tft monitor for the 9-5.
It really hit me last night when I was in the gym looking around for a buddy, instead of looking out for his face, I was looking out for a guy in a ****e t-shirt and a red pair of shorts, since i would not be able to make out his face from any kind of a distance.
Im 22 years of age, and I hope my eye site doesnt deteriorate anymore,if my site deteriorates at the same rate, then I am doomed, as Id prefer not to wear glasses.

If anyone has any advice or tips on how to minimize this deterioration, Id be really glad to here from you
Thanks
ed

Max_Damage

I have to agree here. I'm a complete computer addict. My vision used to be excellent. It is still good, however one eye I find is very slightly blurry and the other is clear but the colours are slightly faded.

aidan_walsh

I've been sitting in front of a computer for anywhere between 5 and 15 hours a day for around 7 years now, and my last eye exam came back not far off 20/20. My long-vision can be effected during this time, but I'm assured that thats only symptomatic of focusing on a fixed location for a long time, which the human eye is not designed for.

Of course, I don't expect this to last forever, but a bit longer would be nice.

leeroybrown

Firstly, some eye sight deterioration is relatively common for short sighted people in their early 20's. I wouldn't necessarily assume that sitting in front of a monitor is having a great effect. If you are worried go see your optician and ask about it.

I spend a lot of time in front of a monitor and I experience no more or less sight deterioration than is normal for someone like me. Occasionally I get some eye strain where I've spent very large amounts of time in front of monitors and also read quite a bit. It's annoying but it goes away relatively quickly.

As for things to do about it:

1) Adjust the brightness of your LCD monitor. They have a much higher brightness than a CRT and are often adjusted too high.
2) Make sure you aren't sitting too close to your monitor and that you don't have excessive light reflected off it. This should be part of good workplace ergonomics anyway.
3) Rest your eyes occasionally and focus on a distant object instead of something close.
4) Go see your optician and get some of the special anti-glare coatings for the glasses you wear at work.

And finally, if you want to see how lucky a modern computer user is go and use a big workstation monitor from the early 90's and see how long it takes before you can feel your eyes getting sore...

zuutroy

My site is still perfect after a good 10 years intensive computing

philstar

i usually browse the web for about 3 hours every night on my laptop, and in the morning i find my eyes are stingy and bloodshot.

But i always tought LCD screens were fairly safe??:o

Saruman

LCD screens will not mess up your eyes as much as CRT's as the refresh rate is much better on the eyes etc.

However it makes little difference. If you spend all your time in enclosed spaces looking at things close up your eyes get short sighted. Think back before computers and TV, it was the scholars who spent all their time reading that needed glasses etc.

If someone soends most of their time outdoors and little time reading, watching TV or usintg a computer then they might have the opposite problem. They tend to be long sighted and need reading glasses but can see for miles.

FlutterinBantam

Check out the site map on the sights you visit.

That could be the problem.

Oriel

Eyes are like other muscles - when you lock them in the same place for long enough, they start to malfunction. Every 5 minutes, look away from the monitor, in the distance - make you eye muscles focus on something completely different.

Of course, you could just be **** too much.

jester77

Doubt it's the computer. I would say I have spent upto 10 hours a day 5 days a week on front of a PC for the last 12 years and my vision is still as good today as it was back then. We get an annual eye test as part of work and I think employers have to offer this, but I could be wrong. Worth checking up on.

challengemaster

seeing as this is ah...

its the masturbation! thats what causes blindness!!

anyway.. back to seriousness, i really doubt its the pc doing harm. for the past 2 years nearly now, i've been spending anything from 6+ hours infront of a pc (does having two monitors count for more? ) daily. my eyesight is perfect. and I do remember reading an article stating that computer gaming actually enhances eyesight / hand - eye co-ordination

muppetkiller

I'd say it's more to do with those woeful office lights...they have my eyes burned out of my head.

Mahatma coat

look you should just get feckin contacts if you dont like glasses, I hve worn glasses since I was 6 and actualy feel kinda naked without them, but if you cant make out your mates face in a gym, whats that 15M tops if its a big room, then you have more than a slight problem

InFront

When I started college a lecturer told our year that if we didn't need glasses then, we would soon. She was right, because I've just had to get glasses and am convinced it's down to reading books and papers with ridiculously small text and using my laptop for studying and maybe looking at a lot of slides down the microscope didn't help either. I last had my eyesight tested three years ago, and it's deteriorated reasonably significantly in that time.

While you may not have had especially good eyesight in the recent past OP, it's certainly conceivable that your studies have caused it to deteriorate more rapidly than it might otherwise have had. A lot of early adult myopia is directly related to time spent studying/ reading.

As someone else said, bad lighting is also a significant stressor. Visit your optician, there's no point in making things worse by putting it on the long finger.