Close to 150 million people sit in front of a computer monitor each day. Many of them spend more than two hours at a time, focusing on screens as they complete work projects, blog, or just surf the web. If a significant portion of your day involves computer time, you may be at the risk of CVS-Computer Vision Syndrome too.
What is Computer Vision Syndrome?
According to the American Optometric Association, CVS is a set of symptoms that are all related to working with a computer. These symptoms can affect both the eyes and musculoskeletal parts of the body. Very simply, CVS occurs when an individual overburden the human eye by asking it to perform in prolonged situations that it was not designed to do. Studies have found that the majority of video display workers experience some eye or vision symptoms. A national survey of doctors of optometry found that more than 14% of their patients present with eye or vision-related symptoms resulting from this type of work. The most common symptoms are:
• Blurred Vision when looking into the distance
• Double Vision
• Stinging of the eyes
• Excessive tearing of the eyes
• Headaches
• Neck or shoulder pain.
(Keep in the mind that these symptoms are generally experienced after prolonged periods of computer work or, over time, due to progressive eye strain associated with CVS).
What Causes CVS?
Unlike printed matter, a computer screen displays words and images through the use of pixels which are multi-dimensional and vary in contrast. The eye is always working extra hard to accommodate as it focuses and refocuses on the graded areas of these combined pixels. The eye lens must work harder to support the function of sight. Eventually, the eye tires and becomes lazy. This explains why vision blurs occur and why it is difficult to look away from the monitor and see distant objects clearly.
One of the most significant environmental factors