Digital eye fatigue is eye strain (basically eye muscle ache). Intense peering and focusing along with glaring overhead lights can cause headaches and blurry vision. Another symptom is dry eye syndrome characterized by dehydrated, burning and sometimes watery eyes.
Eye strain is not harmful to the eyes, but chronic dry eyes can lead to infection and eye scarring, so should not be ignored.
What you can do
- Take a break from your screen every hour.
- Look at a distant object 20 feet away for 20 seconds every 20 minutes (the '20-20-20' rule).
- Make a point of blinking. Its not radiation or heat from your screen that dries the eyes, but reduced blinking rate. We seem to be primed to stare into bright lights, suppressing the blink reflex that coats our corneas with moisture and protective oils. [Those who frequently play online games only blink twice a minute, compared with the usual average of 12 blinks per minute.]
- Lower the light intensity of your screen to help you blink more, but not so low that you starting peering instead and cause eye strain that way.
For added lubrication use eye drops (but avoid those with 'whitening' agents which can irritate and dry out eyes further. Use irritant-free drops free of preservatives. [E.g. Blink Intensive Tears, £4.99, Boots.com]
Warm compresses on the eye area help to re-liquify the oils in the natural tear film. [E.g. Eye Doctor Hold & Cold Eye Compress, £21.99, boots.com]
Source: Feature in Good Housekeeping August 2020.
