How to Deal With Eye Strain as a Programmer
We constantly struggle with eye strain just because we are sitting in front of the computer every single day. And this is of course not healthy. And in previous post I talked how lighting can improve your eye strain just by using correct light. In this post I want to talk about second thing that really helped me and it is buying a better monitor.
Looking for silver bullet
And actually in the last 10 years I tried quite a lot of stuff to improve the state of my eyes. I tried blueberry tablets, I did some exercises for my eyes, I even bought glasses with orange lenses, but it didn't help me a lot.
What really helped was first of all good lighting and secondly good monitor.
And about good lighting I already talked so now it's time to talk about a monitor. And actually if you just want to know what monitor I am using, I am currently using 2 monitors. One of them is LG UltraFine 4K monitor, which is 24 inches and secondly I am using M1 iMac with 4K display.
Which actually means I am using 2 monitors, which are both in 4K. And there is an important reason for it. I don't use a native resolution of 4K, I am using it as a retina. Which actually means it doubles my pixels and I have just full HD on my monitor.
So my image is super crisp and I really see that it helps a lot against eyes strain. Previously in the office I had an ultra wide monitor, which was not retina. And I can say for sure, that the difference between working in the ultra wide display without retina and with retina at home is really significant. My eyes are not that strain after all day of working at home in comparison to the office.
So 4K image is super crisp and it is really good for your eyes.
And yes such monitors cost quite a lot of money but it is worth it in the long run.
Is ultra wide monitor good?
Also here is my opinion about ultra wide monitor if you think about buying one. They are certainly not bad, but they are not comfortable to work with. Why is that? Because they have this strange resolution. Typically we have this ratio 16 to 9, which is the most common ratio and resolution across all displays.
In the ultra wide monitors you have completely different resolution. And typically your resolution will be quite high there like maybe 4K or something like that. But all your icons and all your applications will be relatively small. Which actually means you can't work comfortably there if your eyes are not that good and your image is never retina there.
Also I am really a fan of using 2 monitors instead of one ultra wide monitor because it is not that easy to position and manage all your applications across ultra wide monitor. Typically you don't want to see just a single application, you want to see like 3 or 4 of them, because your monitor is that wide. If you just have 2 normal monitors like 24 inches, then you don't have any problems. You will have 2 open applications on every single monitor at maximum or even one.
Is bigger better?
Also a lot of people nowadays are looking to buy a monitor with bigger inches, like for example 27 or 29. And you need to keep in mind this table with the most comfortable distances where your monitor should be placed.
And you must remember that if you have the bigger monitor, then you must put it further away. And not all people have place on their desk for that. This is why I highly recommend you to get to high quality 4K 24 inches monitors.
Matte vs glossy
And here is one more important point. Almost all monitors have matte image and not glossy, which actually means your monitor is looking less like a mirror. And if you have glossy monitor you will have much cleaner image and it is much better for your eyes, this is what I tested myself. But it will look for you a little bit like a mirror, because you will see objects in your room inside your monitor. But obviously if you have higher brightness, you won't see anything except of your applications inside your monitor. So it's not a problem.
So here is my conclusion. You must take care of your eyes until it is too late. And monitor is one of two main ways how you can improve the situation.
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