The best screen settings for your eyes involve balancing brightness and contrast with your surroundings, reducing blue light in the evening with warmer tones, increasing font size for readability, and using features like Dark Mode, while also maintaining proper monitor distance (20-30 inches) and taking frequent breaks (20-20-20 rule) to prevent strain and dryness.
What is the best screen setting for your eyes?
The 10-10-10 rule for eyes is a simple strategy to combat digital eye strain: every 10 minutes, take a 10-second break and look at something at least 10 feet away, giving your eyes a rest from near-focus on screens. This practice helps prevent eye fatigue, dryness, and headaches by allowing eye muscles to relax and encouraging blinking, which is often reduced during screen use, says Healthline and Brinton Vision.
The higher the color temperature (that is, the overall color is closer to cold tones), the easier it is for people to concentrate, since the blue spectrum suppresses the secretion of melatonin in the brain that makes people sleepy. On the other hand, lower color temperature (warm tones) helps people relax.
The 30 x 30 x 30 Rule: Every 30 minutes, look away from the screen for 30 seconds and focus on something at least 30 feet away. This technique helps keep the eyes moisturized and resets your focusing system.
What's a healthy amount of screen time for adults? Experts say adults should limit screen time outside of work to less than two hours per day. Any time beyond that which you would typically spend on screens should instead be spent participating in physical activity.
The 3-6-9-12 screen time rule is a guideline by experts like Serge Tisseron to help parents gradually introduce digital devices, suggesting no screens before 3 (except video calls), no personal consoles before 6, no unsupervised internet before 9, and no social media before 12, focusing on age-appropriate digital literacy, safety, and balancing screen time with real-world activities like free play and social interaction.
Adjust screen brightness: Set your screen brightness to a comfortable level, typically around 200-300 nits for indoor use. Avoid excessively bright or dim settings, as both can strain your eyes.
If you work at a desk and use a computer, these self-care steps can help take some of the strain off your eyes.
Take more breaks
Regular breaks are a simple and effective way to rest overworked eyes and tired muscles. The 20-20-20 rule is one way to reduce eye fatigue. The steps are simple: For every 20 minutes of screen use or other high-focus activity, take a 20-second break to look at something at least 20 feet away.
To prevent eyestrain, try to rest eyes when using the computer for long periods. Resting the eyes for 15 minutes after two hours of continuous computer use. Also, for every 20 minutes of computer viewing, look into the distance for 20 seconds to allow the eyes a chance to refocus.
Goggles. Goggles should be worn in situations where there is potential for chemical fumes, splashes, mists, sprays, or dust exposure to the eyes. Chemical goggles form a liquid-proof seal around the eyes, protecting them from splashes. Goggles for splash or fine dust protection should have indirect venting.
Adjust your screen's contrast
Contrast refers to the difference between the darkest black and brightest white on your screen. Increasing the contrast can reduce the strain on your eyes. A good rule is to keep your monitor's contrast around 60% to 70% (though only you know what feels best for your eyes).
In conclusion, continuous reading on OLED smartphone screens can cause ocular surface disorder and obvious subjective discomfort.
Features such as light mode and dark mode have been introduced to alleviate eye strain. Light mode features black text on a white background, while dark mode displays white text on a black background. The research indicates that the dark mode can reduce eye strain compared to the light mode [11].
But blue-light glasses may not help remedy digital eye strain. According to a randomized controlled trial published in a 2021 issue of the American Journal of Ophthalmology, blue-light glasses didn't appear to help prevent or improve symptoms of eye strain after two hours of computer use.
If you have wrinkled or crepey skin around your eyes, there are a number of things you can do to improve skin texture, including:
Reduced Intensity: In general, dim screens are less intense and may be more comfortable for your eyes, particularly in dimly lit environments. Pupil dilation: Bright screens may make your pupils contract, diminishing the depth of field and thus making it more difficult to focus on the screen.
Can Bright Light Damage Your Vision? In short, yes, staring at bright lights can damage your eyes. When the retina's light-sensing cells become over-stimulated from looking at a bright light, they release massive amounts of signaling chemicals, injuring the back of the eye as a result.
Many digital screens have a night mode option, which adjusts the setting to make your screen have a yellow tint. This yellow tint helps reduce the blue light emitted from your screen, helping to relieve eye fatigue.
Night Mode Can Help Reduce Blue Light
According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, dark mode, or night mode, is a setting offered on various digital devices to decrease the screen brightness while reducing eye strain.
The 10-10-10 rule is a simple way to give your eyes a break from screens. Every 10 minutes, you look at something about 10 feet away for 10 seconds. This brief pause lets the tiny muscles inside your eyes relax, which helps prevent the tired, dry, or strained feeling that comes from staring at a screen for too long.
How Much Screen Time is Too Much? While there's no universal answer to this question, spending seven hours or more on screens daily could potentially harm your eyes.
The physical hazards of excess screen time include eye strain, neck and shoulder pain, and back pain. Mental health hazards include increased levels of depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders.