It’s no secret that staring at the digital screen from a close range all day long have negative effects on your eyes, after all, that’s what we’ve been taught since we were kids – ” don’t sit close to the TV” said my parents. And I know that they were not alone. Fast forward to today, things haven’t changed much, it’s just smartphones instead of TV. Almost everyone today spends most of their day (and night) staring at their smartphones. So the question is “does staring at your smartphone screen all day really damage your eyes?” Short answer : yes. For a detailed answer head to this article by digital trends.
Here are 5 surefire ways to protect your eyes while using smartphones :
1. Adjust Screen Brightness
The first and important thing to do is to adjust your screen’s brightness according to your surrounding. Setting the brightness too low or too much can stress your eyes and can cause problem maintaining focus. To adjust your smartphone’s brightness according to your environment, go to phone’s settings option, then to display, and turn on adaptive brightness. Now the screen brightness will adjust automatically depending on the light around you. Another option is to use an app that manages the screen brightness better than the default brightness settings. We have already made a list of such apps, head to this page to know about them.
2. Hold Your Smartphone at a Distance
This might seem a bit odd, holding your smartphone at a distance, but this trick can help lot. On average, an user hold its smartphone only about 8 inches from their face. Try holding it at least 15 inches away from your eyes. If you feel any difficulty in reading texts you can always increase the size of texts from settings menu. This might seem awkward at first but once you get used to it, it will help for sure.
3. The 20-20-20 Rule
20-20-20 rule is quite effective. What this rule suggests is instead of staring at your screen all the time, take breaks on regular interval. After every 20 minutes of staring at your screen, take a break of 20 seconds, and look at something which is 20 feet away. Doing so results in relaxation of your eye muscles. Know more about 20-20-20 rule.
4. Blink, Blink, Blink
According to a study, we tend blink about a third less than we normally would when we stare at our smartphone screens. Blinking often keeps the eyes moist and reduce dryness. So keep your eyes moist by blinking while staring at your screen.
5. Get Protective Coatings
In case you don’t know matte screen protector film or corning gorilla glass have anti-glare feature. If your phone doesn’t have that (which is very rare as most of the smartphones come with corning gorilla glass) you can buy anti-glare coating and carefully put it on your phone’s screen. That should help reduce screen glare.
If you were glasses you can also get that anti-glare coating on your glasses.
So these are some tips that we suggest to protect your eyes. If you know of any other tip, do let us know in the comments.
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