Prevent Light Glares While Using Your Laptop
I’ve often had problems staring at my laptop screen for a long time because it makes my eyes feel somehow hot and painful. I really didn’t know what exactly to do about it, except that I sometimes get forced off what I was doing to give my eyes some break from the screen.
On average, the working hours for any dedicated laptop user are in big multiples greater than or equal to five hours. For example, when I am programming, I could spend up to 3 hours on a small segment of code that I am simply trying to debug. Sometimes, I get really excited after I have a breakthrough from my difficult code blocks. However, here lies the main problem, I would keep staring and focusing on what I am doing on the screen until I hit this breakthrough. This same thing goes when I am doing something different on my laptop, like doing some graphic designing, or writing an article like this one you are currently reading.
In the United States, it has been shown that the average time spent using the internet per day is 6 hours, 31 minutes, with mobile internet accounting for up to 2 hours and the rest 4 hours are spent in front of a laptop or a desktop. It is no news that we spend a lot of time in front of the computer screen. As unavoidable as it may be, staring at your laptop’s screen for extended periods of time without adequate eye protection equipment has associated consequences.
In a previous post, I wrote on the 20-20-20 rule for preventing eye strain from prolonged reading or staring at the computer screen. But in addition to that, there are some other interventions that will greatly help protect your eyes from strain, or long-term consequences.
Two common problematic factors associated with the use of electronic screens are as follows:
- Glare
- Blue light
Screen Glare And How To Prevent It
Light travels in straight lines at a speed of 3 x 10^8 meters in one second. That’s such an enormous speed, you know. That is why you can see the light from very distant objects like the stars and a very distant car at night. If you orient yourself in the direction of the light, you can actually see it as bright as it is. But most of the time, before the light gets so far, other obstructing objects may have blocked it from view.
Lights from the computer screen also travel in straight lines too but these lights are spread out entirely on your computer screen and may appear to interfere with your eyes.
Computer screens use different technologies to light up your view. Basically, what you see on your laptop screen are actually lighted up pixels that have been made to take up colours depending on the specifications by the image in the computer memory. Pixels are tiny dots on the computer monitor that you may not appreciate clearly except on a very close look. These dots make up any image you see on your laptop’s screen.
The following technologies have been adopted to light up these pixels since the advent of monitors:
- Cathode Ray Tube(CRT): The very old on in those old TVs
- Liquid Crystal Display(LCD): In newer electronic monitors and TVs
- Thin Film Transistor(TFT): A newer technology for flat screen monitors.
Another lighting technology that has not been popularly adopted is the LED (Light Emitting Diode). LED sounds familiar to you, right? LED has not yet gained popular grounds for lighting up laptop screens because it is quite difficult to make LED lamps that are as small as would be required for the new flat screens and laptop monitors.
LCD screens are the commonest in use for laptops today. They are efficient and small enough to be implanted into the flat screens of laptop computers and they have minimal energy requirements. LCD screens do not emit radiations, like ultraviolet rays or gamma rays but the blue light they one major con they may possess at the moment.
LCD lights in laptop screens are linearly polarised, that is, they are made to travel or oscillate in one plane. Illustrated below:
Vertical linearly polarised light; Photophysics.com
Horizontal linearly polarised light; Photophysics.com
This means that the light is emitted off from the screen in straight lines in one plane. However, when you stare at your laptop’s screen, you only focus on only one part of the screen. The other surfaces of the screen emit light, and these lights emitted may interfere with each other and cause what we refer to as glare. Glare can affect your eye and cause eye strain, and other harm in the long run. There it becomes important to prevent or protect your eyes from the harmful effects of glares. So how can you prevent glares and consequently eye strain?
How To Prevent Light Glares While Using Your Laptop
When you using your laptop, it is recommended that you decrease your screen backlight when you are working in the dark. But when you are working in room light or ambient light, you become prone to the effects of the diffuse external lights which may be reflected from your laptop screen and add to the glare effects, and eye strain. So, if you are going to reduce your monitor backlight and rely on the conventional external lighting source, you will be creating more problems if you are not using the right equipment. In other to solve this problem and prevent eye strain from prolonged use of your computer, I will recommend the Quntis anti-glare e-reading lamp to you.
Quntis Anti-glare Screen Light
There are many lamps out there, ranging from the conventional standing lamps
And of the many examples of anti-glare equipment, I want to introduce you to the Quntis LED-Screen light for laptops. This product is a very amazing one that stands out from the rest of them out there and you will see why shortly. First, if you still choose to stick to your accustomed lamps, see the illustration below.
Quntis anti-glare screen light prevents glare by providing a uniform, non-flickering soft light that is friendly to your eyes, thus preventing eye strain/fatigue caused by flickering light and reflective glare off the computer screen.
I have personally tested this product out, and I am a living testimony that this product is very good, especially when using your laptop for night study, night jobs, or movie watching.
This Quntis anti-glare laptop screen light has the following additional advantages to your accustomed lamps:
- It is built with controls for adjusting colour temperature and brightness.
- It does not take any space as it is directly mounted over your computer screen. [See description]
- It provides light to your screen and keyboard.
- It is relatively more affordable. Plus, you get a special bonus if you use the link below and apply my coupon code provided here.
$39.99
Quntis e-Reading LED Task Lamp with No Glare on Screen for Eyes Care, USB Powered Computer Monitor Light Save Desk Space, 3 Color Temperature + Adjustable Brightness Office Home Lamp, Black
To get up to 15% OFF, use coupon code QuDLightcm01. This Special offer expires on the 31st Dec 2021 at 11:59pm.
This amazing product offers you a chance to work or read as long as you desire in front of your laptop or computer screen, without experiencing eye strain, eye fatigue, or other negative effects of direct conventional lamps on your eyes. It is fitted specially to be supported by your computer screen while providing a soft illumination to the screen and the keyboard.
If you cannot afford to reduce your work or study time in front of your computer but you know you need to reduce the effects of glare on your eyes, then this product will be worth an investment in your future. I studied with the Quntis lamp more than five hours of the night after I ordered for it and I observed that my eyes were better accustomed to the light than when I was using my computer screen light only. This product effectively counters direct light coming from the screen and gives you a more uniform light that is evenly distributed, unlike other sources of external light that will further worsen the glare effect.
Don’t hesitate to get yours now and enjoy your entire time on your computer screen.
Blue light Eye Consequences
Blue light is one of the colours in the light spectrum often represented as ROYGBIV.
- R – Red
- O – Orange
- Y -Yellow
- G – Green
- B -Blue
- I -Indigo
- V – Violet
Blue light is everywhere around us in our natural environment but it is our digital environment, laptop screens, mobile phones, etc, that causes excess exposure and the need for concern. This is because the technology adopted in lighting up our newer laptop screens combines white light LED with blue light LED to create a solid-state light that uses significantly less energy and power than alternative sources of light. These make this LED-light combination technology ideal for electronic devices. But this blue light affects your eyes in varying ways.
Spending your entire day staring at the screen means you are going to be exposed to blue light in doses that may harm your eyes.
There is a concern that exposure to blue light might cause more damage to the eyes than exposure to light of shorter wavelengths like Red, Orange, and so on. Why are we so concerned with blue light than with Indigo and Violet lights that have even shorter wavelengths than blue light?
Blue light is the most energetic light that the eye can primarily perceive. The eye perceives colours and images through the part of the eye known as the retina. The retina is pigmented (to absorb light) and contains cells known as photoreceptor cells. These photoreceptors include the rods(specialized for low-light vision) and cones (for the perception of images and colours).
The cones, which are responsible for the perception of images and colours have three photopigments – red, green, and blue(RGB). RGB sounds familiar, right? These three primary pigments are sensitive to light of different wavelengths. When light from an image or a light source, hits the eyes, specific photopigments would be activated by the light. In other words, the light you perceive was first split into different wavelengths, which in turn stimulated different photoreceptors and then interpreted by the brain as the colour you see it as.
If you recall your Fine Arts, I’m sure you were told that you can get almost any colour in the world (except white, which means none) by combining the three primary colours – Red, Green, and Blue. That’s is what the computer monitors do too. Computer colours are made from mixing these primary colours in different proportions, such that orange colour would be represented as RGB (255, 165, 0), that is Red at 255, Green at 165, and no blue colour mixed. So, this is what your computer monitors do to make the colours you see on them.
The human eye does the same too. The eye photoreceptors would also be activated in the same manner by orange light from an image or a light source. Such that red photoreceptors would be stimulated at a proportion similar to 255 of the computer colours, blue receptor at a proportion of 165, and green receptors would not be stimulated at all.
All these points are geared towards making you realize why blue light is of most concern to ophthalmologists. It is the shortest wavelength light that can primarily stimulate the eye photoreceptors. Short wavelength means higher frequency, and thus more damage.
Another important wavelength of light that is of primary concern to the eyes and skin is ultraviolet light. It cannot be seen with the eyes and lies in the portion of the light spectrum beyond violet, as the name implies. This ultraviolet light is emitted by the sun is high doses and has been implicated in the causation of cataracts, skin cancers, etc. However, blue light is emitted in high doses from the screen of our phones, laptops, and desktop computers and it can cause the following damages on prolonged exposure:
- Cataracts
- Age-Related Macular Degeneration(ARMD)
- Altered Sleep Cycles
- Eyelid cancers
- Pterygium
- Pinguecula
The risks of all these are considerably higher if your work involves you staring at your desktop or laptop screen for very long hours. But how do you prevent these effects if you have no option of limiting your use of the computer?
Preventing Blue-light From Entering The Eyes
Blue light can be prevented from entering the eyes by using light-filter glasses that can filter off blue light before the light enters your eyes. These sometimes come as glasses that filter off only one colour, say blue light only and allows others to enter, or they could come as monochromatic glasses that allows only one light to enter the eyes.
If you are a graphic designer, it is quite obvious that you would need to see all the colours as much as possible. So, three interventions would be appropriate for you.
- Use single blue-light filtering glasses
- Regulate the amount of light emitted from your screen by adjusting the backlights
- Use automatic dark mode that switches to duller blue-less visuals at night
References
Prevent Light Glares While Using Your Laptop
I’ve often had problems staring at my laptop screen for a long time because it makes my eyes feel somehow hot and painful. I really didn’t know what exactly to do about it, except that I sometimes get forced off what I was doing to give my eyes some break from the screen.
On average, the working hours for any dedicated laptop user are in big multiples greater than or equal to five hours. For example, when I am programming, I could spend up to 3 hours on a small segment of code that I am simply trying to debug. Sometimes, I get really excited after I have a breakthrough from my difficult code blocks. However, here lies the main problem, I would keep staring and focusing on what I am doing on the screen until I hit this breakthrough. This same thing goes when I am doing something different on my laptop, like doing some graphic designing, or writing an article like this one you are currently reading.
In the United States, it has been shown that the average time spent using the internet per day is 6 hours, 31 minutes, with mobile internet accounting for up to 2 hours and the rest 4 hours are spent in front of a laptop or a desktop. It is no news that we spend a lot of time in front of the computer screen. As unavoidable as it may be, staring at your laptop’s screen for extended periods of time without adequate eye protection equipment has associated consequences.
In a previous post, I wrote on the 20-20-20 rule for preventing eye strain from prolonged reading or staring at the computer screen. But in addition to that, there are some other interventions that will greatly help protect your eyes from strain, or long-term consequences.
Two common problematic factors associated with the use of electronic screens are as follows:
- Glare
- Blue light
Screen Glare And How To Prevent It
Light travels in straight lines at a speed of 3 x 10^8 meters in one second. That’s such an enormous speed, you know. That is why you can see the light from very distant objects like the stars and a very distant car at night. If you orient yourself in the direction of the light, you can actually see it as bright as it is. But most of the time, before the light gets so far, other obstructing objects may have blocked it from view.
Lights from the computer screen also travel in straight lines too but these lights are spread out entirely on your computer screen and may appear to interfere with your eyes.
Computer screens use different technologies to light up your view. Basically, what you see on your laptop screen are actually lighted up pixels that have been made to take up colours depending on the specifications by the image in the computer memory. Pixels are tiny dots on the computer monitor that you may not appreciate clearly except on a very close look. These dots make up any image you see on your laptop’s screen.
The following technologies have been adopted to light up these pixels since the advent of monitors:
- Cathode Ray Tube(CRT): The very old on in those old TVs
- Liquid Crystal Display(LCD): In newer electronic monitors and TVs
- Thin Film Transistor(TFT): A newer technology for flat screen monitors.
Another lighting technology that has not been popularly adopted is the LED (Light Emitting Diode). LED sounds familiar to you, right? LED has not yet gained popular grounds for lighting up laptop screens because it is quite difficult to make LED lamps that are as small as would be required for the new flat screens and laptop monitors.
LCD screens are the commonest in use for laptops today. They are efficient and small enough to be implanted into the flat screens of laptop computers and they have minimal energy requirements. LCD screens do not emit radiations, like ultraviolet rays or gamma rays but the blue light they one major con they may possess at the moment.
LCD lights in laptop screens are linearly polarised, that is, they are made to travel or oscillate in one plane. Illustrated below:
Vertical linearly polarised light; Photophysics.com
Horizontal linearly polarised light; Photophysics.com
This means that the light is emitted off from the screen in straight lines in one plane. However, when you stare at your laptop’s screen, you only focus on only one part of the screen. The other surfaces of the screen emit light, and these lights emitted may interfere with each other and cause what we refer to as glare. Glare can affect your eye and cause eye strain, and other harm in the long run. There it becomes important to prevent or protect your eyes from the harmful effects of glares. So how can you prevent glares and consequently eye strain?
How To Prevent Light Glares While Using Your Laptop
When you using your laptop, it is recommended that you decrease your screen backlight when you are working in the dark. But when you are working in room light or ambient light, you become prone to the effects of the diffuse external lights which may be reflected from your laptop screen and add to the glare effects, and eye strain. So, if you are going to reduce your monitor backlight and rely on the conventional external lighting source, you will be creating more problems if you are not using the right equipment. In other to solve this problem and prevent eye strain from prolonged use of your computer, I will recommend the Quntis anti-glare e-reading lamp to you.
Quntis Anti-glare Screen Light
There are many lamps out there, ranging from the conventional standing lamps
And of the many examples of anti-glare equipment, I want to introduce you to the Quntis LED-Screen light for laptops. This product is a very amazing one that stands out from the rest of them out there and you will see why shortly. First, if you still choose to stick to your accustomed lamps, see the illustration below.
Quntis anti-glare screen light prevents glare by providing a uniform, non-flickering soft light that is friendly to your eyes, thus preventing eye strain/fatigue caused by flickering light and reflective glare off the computer screen.
I have personally tested this product out, and I am a living testimony that this product is very good, especially when using your laptop for night study, night jobs, or movie watching.
This Quntis anti-glare laptop screen light has the following additional advantages to your accustomed lamps:
- It is built with controls for adjusting colour temperature and brightness.
- It does not take any space as it is directly mounted over your computer screen. [See description]
- It provides light to your screen and keyboard.
- It is relatively more affordable. Plus, you get a special bonus if you use the link below and apply my coupon code provided here.
$39.99
Quntis e-Reading LED Task Lamp with No Glare on Screen for Eyes Care, USB Powered Computer Monitor Light Save Desk Space, 3 Color Temperature + Adjustable Brightness Office Home Lamp, Black
To get up to 15% OFF, use coupon code QuDLightcm01. This Special offer expires on the 31st Dec 2021 at 11:59pm.
This amazing product offers you a chance to work or read as long as you desire in front of your laptop or computer screen, without experiencing eye strain, eye fatigue, or other negative effects of direct conventional lamps on your eyes. It is fitted specially to be supported by your computer screen while providing a soft illumination to the screen and the keyboard.
If you cannot afford to reduce your work or study time in front of your computer but you know you need to reduce the effects of glare on your eyes, then this product will be worth an investment in your future. I studied with the Quntis lamp more than five hours of the night after I ordered for it and I observed that my eyes were better accustomed to the light than when I was using my computer screen light only. This product effectively counters direct light coming from the screen and gives you a more uniform light that is evenly distributed, unlike other sources of external light that will further worsen the glare effect.
Don’t hesitate to get yours now and enjoy your entire time on your computer screen.
Blue light Eye Consequences
Blue light is one of the colours in the light spectrum often represented as ROYGBIV.
- R – Red
- O – Orange
- Y -Yellow
- G – Green
- B -Blue
- I -Indigo
- V – Violet
Blue light is everywhere around us in our natural environment but it is our digital environment, laptop screens, mobile phones, etc, that causes excess exposure and the need for concern. This is because the technology adopted in lighting up our newer laptop screens combines white light LED with blue light LED to create a solid-state light that uses significantly less energy and power than alternative sources of light. These make this LED-light combination technology ideal for electronic devices. But this blue light affects your eyes in varying ways.
Spending your entire day staring at the screen means you are going to be exposed to blue light in doses that may harm your eyes.
There is a concern that exposure to blue light might cause more damage to the eyes than exposure to light of shorter wavelengths like Red, Orange, and so on. Why are we so concerned with blue light than with Indigo and Violet lights that have even shorter wavelengths than blue light?
Blue light is the most energetic light that the eye can primarily perceive. The eye perceives colours and images through the part of the eye known as the retina. The retina is pigmented (to absorb light) and contains cells known as photoreceptor cells. These photoreceptors include the rods(specialized for low-light vision) and cones (for the perception of images and colours).
The cones, which are responsible for the perception of images and colours have three photopigments – red, green, and blue(RGB). RGB sounds familiar, right? These three primary pigments are sensitive to light of different wavelengths. When light from an image or a light source, hits the eyes, specific photopigments would be activated by the light. In other words, the light you perceive was first split into different wavelengths, which in turn stimulated different photoreceptors and then interpreted by the brain as the colour you see it as.
If you recall your Fine Arts, I’m sure you were told that you can get almost any colour in the world (except white, which means none) by combining the three primary colours – Red, Green, and Blue. That’s is what the computer monitors do too. Computer colours are made from mixing these primary colours in different proportions, such that orange colour would be represented as RGB (255, 165, 0), that is Red at 255, Green at 165, and no blue colour mixed. So, this is what your computer monitors do to make the colours you see on them.
The human eye does the same too. The eye photoreceptors would also be activated in the same manner by orange light from an image or a light source. Such that red photoreceptors would be stimulated at a proportion similar to 255 of the computer colours, blue receptor at a proportion of 165, and green receptors would not be stimulated at all.
All these points are geared towards making you realize why blue light is of most concern to ophthalmologists. It is the shortest wavelength light that can primarily stimulate the eye photoreceptors. Short wavelength means higher frequency, and thus more damage.
Another important wavelength of light that is of primary concern to the eyes and skin is ultraviolet light. It cannot be seen with the eyes and lies in the portion of the light spectrum beyond violet, as the name implies. This ultraviolet light is emitted by the sun is high doses and has been implicated in the causation of cataracts, skin cancers, etc. However, blue light is emitted in high doses from the screen of our phones, laptops, and desktop computers and it can cause the following damages on prolonged exposure:
- Cataracts
- Age-Related Macular Degeneration(ARMD)
- Altered Sleep Cycles
- Eyelid cancers
- Pterygium
- Pinguecula
The risks of all these are considerably higher if your work involves you staring at your desktop or laptop screen for very long hours. But how do you prevent these effects if you have no option of limiting your use of the computer?
Preventing Blue-light From Entering The Eyes
Blue light can be prevented from entering the eyes by using light-filter glasses that can filter off blue light before the light enters your eyes. These sometimes come as glasses that filter off only one colour, say blue light only and allows others to enter, or they could come as monochromatic glasses that allows only one light to enter the eyes.
If you are a graphic designer, it is quite obvious that you would need to see all the colours as much as possible. So, three interventions would be appropriate for you.
- Use single blue-light filtering glasses
- Regulate the amount of light emitted from your screen by adjusting the backlights
- Use automatic dark mode that switches to duller blue-less visuals at night
References
