Have you noticed any blurred vision or dry eyes lately? Do your eyes occasionally burn or feel itchy? Having a hard time deciding whether that’s an “l” or “i” on your smartphone’s touch screen? You may suffer from CVS–Computer Vision Syndrome.
That’s the word from the Canadian Association of Optometrists, who claims that the average person spends 7.5 hours a day staring at computers, televisions, cell phones and smartphones. (“Computer screens causing eye strain for boomers“.)
According to the researchers, eye strain is due to lack of enough blinking and sex. (I mean females suffer more eyestrain, say the researchers, due to hormone changes.)
People normally blink around 16 to 20 times a minute. But put a computer or cell phone in front of their eyes and the blink rate drops to 6 to 8 times a minute. Not good. Fewer tears, more dry eyes, more eye strain.
I’m guessing that’s why young people have less eye fatigue than their elders when playing with their cell phones. An 18 year old’s lenses in the eye ball are more pliable than people’s lenses in their 40’s and 50’s. That makes 6 point type on a mobile phone screen look sharper to a young person than someone older. As our eyes age, the lenses become less pliable, causing greater eye strain and dry eyes.
Years ago when I had Lasik surgery with mono vision correction (my right eye for reading, my left for distance), I could clearly read tiny type in newspapers and on cell phones. Now it’s more difficult.
Fortunately some Smartphones, like the iPhone, my new Sprint HTC Hero and some BlackBerry’s, let you adjust font sizes. But mobile device displays are not keeping pace with our ability to read small type and avoid eye strain.
Using your voice to interact with your phone is one solution. As I wrote in my futuristic post “A Day in the Life of a 4G Wireless Mobile Phone Guy,” mobile phone voice technology in the future advances considerably. “Charlene,” the mobile phone guy’s companion, is a smartphone that communicates with him only by voice. Charlene not only understands simple voice commands. She interprets his intentions and makes suggestions based on her previous communications with him–all done without him squinting at a tiny phone screen.
Maybe you’d like a pair of Japanese-made “Wink Glasses,” intended for heavy video-gamers and book readers who fail to blink. For a mere $430, you get glasses with built-in sensors. Fail to blink for longer than five seconds and the lens in front of the offending eye fogs up until you comply. (It’s like the Borg Queen on Star Trek saying “you must comply,” but without all the metal body gear.)
Until someone in Silicon Valley, the Japanese or the Borg Queen finds a solution to our electronic eye strain problems, I recommend you hold your smartphone in your left hand, a lens magnifier in your right and use your nose for touch screen text entry. Even if your nose hits the wrong keys, you’ll at least see the screen clearly while avoiding eye fatigue.
By the way, I typed this blog post using 18 point type in a text editor. (WordPress’ tiny type is making me go blind.)
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