Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Eyestrain and your monitor

I spent this past weekend completely revamping my desktop in real life, not my computer, in order to make optimal use of the new Macbook and 24-inch monitor I brought to my home office. 

I was astonished to learn that a computer monitor should be a lot further away from your face than I ever thought, or than most people (including myself) ever place it. This article, Viewing Distance at Computer Workstations, explains the physiological science behind it and how distance effects eyestrain. 

But the bottom line is you want the screen about 30 to 40 inches away from your eyes. It's better to place the monitor further away and make your screen fonts larger than to have the screen too close to your eyes. I've been following this logic for a few days now and I think I feel the difference! 

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I think 40 inches might be pushing it but I only have a lowly 17" LCD not a humongous 24" as you do. I think it depends on what you use it for too. I am sure a graphics artist is not going to sit 40" away no matter the size of the screen.