Top five tips on how to beat screen fatigue

With so many of us in roles that are predominantly screen-based, how do you beat screen fatigue?

It's the 21st century and most of us work on computers all day long, come home and watch TV, scroll through our phones in-between. All of our screen times must be embarrassing. It seems impossible to avoid screen fatigue, especially if your job is predominantly screen-based.

What is screen fatigue?

Screen fatigue is when after a long period, with no breaks, of looking at a screen, be it a computer, phone or TV, the muscles around our eyes get worn out and strained. One of the reasons for this is that when using screens, our eyes are constantly having to refocus on the tiny pixels that make up elements such as text. There are also other factors such as blue light, glare and reduced blinking that contribute to screen fatigue.

Source - London Vision Clinic

Our top five tips to avoid screen fatigue and burnout:

1.) The 20-20-20 rule

Ophthalmologists recommend the 20-20-20 rule which is after 20 minutes of looking at the screen, look at an object 20 metres away for 20 seconds or more to relax your eye muscles;

2.) Lowering your brightness

Dimming your computer screen slightly to lower the brightness or using night mode on your phone can help prevent straining eyes,

3.) Change your text size

Make the text on your screen bigger so you're not squinting at small text,

4.) Use phone meetings over video conferencing

Schedule in more phone meetings to prevent screen fatigue rather than using a video conferencing platform,

5.) Use blue light filters

Use a blue light filter for your phone, buy a special screen for your computer or buy some blue light glasses. Blue light filters help protect the eyes and a protective screen for your computer can help prevent too much tir

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Thank you to Rebecca Eumorfopoulos, who is creating our social media posts and managing the communications of T21, for writing this post.

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