Do you know how far you should sit from your screen while using a computer? If the distance is too close or too far, it may affect your viewing experience and, in some cases, cause eye strain.
The belief that sitting too close to a TV is bad for your health may have originated from a legitimate concern over a TV recall in the 1960s. A certain line of defective televisions emitted a significant amount of x-ray radiation, which is bad for the eyes and overall health. Although there haven’t been reports of this problem since then, extended exposure to screens can cause eye strain.
Eye strain happens because the muscles attached to your eyes tense up to help them focus. If your eyes need to adjust constantly between the brightness of your screen and the darkness of your room, you’ll experience this eye strain fatigue more quickly. However, there are simple ways to slow down the effects of eye strain. You can blink more frequently to moisturize your eyes, glance away from your book or monitor periodically, and use moderate brightness not too different from the brightness of your surroundings.
Sitting too close to your screen may not hurt your health, but it can hurt your viewing experience. The correct distance to sit from your screen is at least far enough where you can’t make out individual pixels that will make the image look blocky and distorted.
If you’re in the market for a new display, there’s a simple way to figure out what size you should buy. For a 1080p display, figure out how far you’ll be sitting from the screen, and divide the distance by about 1.6 to get the size of the largest TV or monitor you should purchase. For 4k displays, the pixels are much smaller, so you can get away with buying a larger screen.
Once you’ve done some simple math, purchased the right display, and maybe installed some bias lighting behind the display to improve contrast and reduce eye strain even further, you’re all set to sit in front of your computer for as long as you want.
In conclusion, although there’s no specific time frame for how long a computer monitor should last, knowing the right distance to sit from your screen can affect your viewing experience and overall eye health.