What Is Digital Eye Strain And How Do You Treat It

A dog helping her owner stare at laptop screen. Source: SeventyFour - Canva Pro/Getty Images

Computer screens are a normal part of most jobs. Hand-held devices, laptops, and desktop monitors are necessary tools for managing a huge variety of job tasks. However, when you need to look at a computer screen for a prolonged duration (whether at work or home), your eyes may be adversely affected.

Digital eye strain (also termed Computer Vision Syndrome) refers to a group of vision and physical eye symptoms related to repeated and prolonged use of a computer device of any size. It occurs in at least 50% of all computer users, according to many studies.

Those who look at a computer screen for longer than a couple of hours at a time are at the highest risk.

What Does Digital Eye Strain Feel Like?

Digital eye strain impacts two distinct aspects of your eyes – the outer surface of the eyes themselves and the ability to physically focus your eyes on an object.

Specifically, your eyes can feel dry, itchy, irritated, and/or tired. Focusing your eyes on the computer screen for a long time, vision may become blurry. When you then gaze elsewhere, the eyes may take longer than usual to accommodate and sharpen the focus of the new image. If the straining persists over a long enough duration, symptoms may start to occur throughout the day.

Considering that those symptoms apply to several different medical conditions. It’s best if a medical professional examines you to determine the underlying cause for significant or persistent symptoms of any kind.

What Causes Digital Eye Strain?

Two factors are responsible for digital eye strain.

The first involves the surface of the eyes. Like oil inside an engine or wax on skis, our eyes need to be lubricated to work effectively. With smoother surfaces, less friction and irritation occur. Our bodies possess an in-house method of constantly lubricating the eyes – tears.

When looking at a computer screen, we blink infrequently. It may seem odd, but it’s been proven. Why is that important? Because that’s the mechanism for placing tears onto the eyes' surface. Don’t blink often enough, and they become dry.

The second factor relates to our muscles.

To physically do anything, our muscles move us in some manner. Obvious examples, such as exercising, lifting boxes, or getting out of bed, come to mind when talking about muscles. We tend to forget that muscles are responsible for tasks involving the face. Muscles do the work of smiling, chewing, and adjusting our eyes.

When looking at an object, eye muscles modify your point of focus to sharpen your view of it. Whether it be near, far, or somewhere in between, those muscles allow you to see it clearly. Muscles must work harder to bring closer objects into focus than those much farther away.

Consider what happens if you hold your arm out to the side and don’t move it for an hour. Can you do it? Likely not. Fatigue sets in well before time is up. The rest of your body may be fine, but your arm needs a break.

Apply that same concept to keeping your eyes focused on a fixed computer screen for an hour. The same thing occurs. Your eyes get tired. When eye muscles fatigue, the physical act of focusing at the same distance becomes difficult.

One is plenty. But, in today's world, needing two computer screens for work tasks isn't unusual. Source: Jonathan - Canva Pro/Pexels

Prevention And Alleviating Your Symptoms

Now that you know what it feels like and why it happens, what can you do to feel better? Or, ideally, how can you minimize the chance of it occurring in the first place?

Since dry eyes from less frequent blinking and a prolonged fixed focus point are responsible for digital eye strain, address those issues directly.

While using the computer, you have to frequently shift your visual focus point to something farther away than the computer. Eye muscles work less – and, therefore, can relax more – the farther away you focus.

With modifying your gaze often, your eyes will naturally blink, creating tears to moisten them. If it’s not enough, you will need to consciously make sure to blink several times periodically. Lubricating eye drops may also be of some benefit.

A guideline was developed to educate people on integrating these points during prolonged computer screen use. It’s called: The 20-20-20 Rule. Every twenty minutes, you should visually focus on an object twenty feet away from you for twenty seconds.

Developing New Habits

I’m a thoughtful and practical person when considering this particular guideline.

A regimented frequency, duration, and distance may be useful for certain people. Setting an alarm on your phone or computer, prompting you every twenty minutes, works very well for some. If that describes you, try it.

However, it’s not the perfect answer to the problem. The concepts behind the guideline are what’s crucial.

When staring at a computer screen for an hour or more at a time, you must allow your eye muscles frequent, short rest breaks. In addition, you must counteract the screen’s impact on your blink rate to keep your eyes adequately moist. It’s the only way to alleviate the problem.

The exact distance isn’t important. Altering your focus to something at least several steps away from you is the key to forcing your eye muscles to relax. Heck, gaze out the window to the parking lot if you want. Choose anything to look at so long as it’s not too close.

Similarly, the exact timing can vary to a degree while still being effective. Changing your focus point for only a couple of seconds is nice but physically meaningless to your body. Give yourself some time. Looking away once an hour or so doesn’t add up to anything of worth. Your eyes will manage if you consistently do it at least two times per hour, though three is better (especially if you must look at the screen for several hours every day).

All of this requires forming a new habit. While using the computer, every hour or so you need to frequently shift your point of focus farther out and blink a couple of times. It may take a while to figure out what works best for reminding yourself to do it. Try pairing it with something you need to do frequently for your job. It could be when answering your phone, switching between applications on the screen, or anything else you can think of.

Once you determine how to remember it, the process only takes a minute or less per hour. At an absolutely bare minimum, your health is worth at least that much time. Wouldn’t you agree?

Think about it. How often and for how long do you stare at your cell phone screen? Source: NemanjaMiscevic - Canva Pro/Getty Images

Other Helpful Things You Can Do To For Your Eyes

Sometimes, everyday things may get in the way, preventing you from seeing what’s on your screen easily.

Light from a nearby window or the room lighting may reflect off the screen. Moving the screen position (or the lighting itself, if possible) may decrease the glare significantly. Alternatively, you can obtain a covering for your screen. It’s similar to using sunglasses but nowhere near as darkening.

If you notice you’re squinting to read some of the words onscreen, adjust the zoom level (either within the application itself or for the system as a whole) to increase the size. If feasible, reposition the monitor closer to you to make reading easier.

Regarding the issue of dry eyes, a humidifier in the room may also be beneficial. It places more moisture in the air. In turn, your eyes may become less dry to some extent. While it isn’t a replacement for blinking regularly, every little bit of help may make a difference to you.

Environmentally, none of those things causes digital eye strain. However, they may adversely impact your overall positioning and eyes to some degree. Something to consider if you feel it may apply to your situation.

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Some form of computer work will always be required for many jobs. When you need to look at a computer screen (or two, which is becoming more commonplace for some) for more than a couple of hours, the risk of digital eye strain increases significantly.

While you can’t eliminate this specific job requirement, you have control over how you manage it. Two to three times an hour, every hour, help your eyes. Temporarily rest your eye muscles by looking at something farther away from you. And don’t forget to blink.