For many of us our working life now revolves around staring at the computer screen all day, and if you’re over forty you’ll need specs for close and middle distance rather than the far distance glasses required in the past. Baby boomers are now around age 60, and lead busy and dynamic lives, again often involving long periods of time at the computer. According to statistics over 100 million Americans spend over 50% of their working day at the VDU. Then add in mobile phones, i-pads, gaming consoles……our world is getting closer to us all the time…….
Few people wear specs made for their computer, which means they’re struggling for huge amounts of time every day with glasses not designed for purpose. This is a contributing factor to a collection of symptoms called visual fatigue syndrome, which affects up to 83% of the US population at some point in their lives. This is due to a combination of environmental, physical and physiological factors, leading to tired eyes, headaches, blurred vision, neck and shoulder pain. A vague collection of problems that will fluctuate, and it takes some detective work by your GP or optician to discover your problem.
If you are a computer user over age forty, there are many products out there to give you better vision and make life more comfortable. You can have single vision glasses just for the screen, but they won’t benefit you in using laptops, tablets, or mobiles. Vocational lenses combine a wide reading area with mid-distance, like a simplified varifocal lens, and will allow you to do everything up to arms length. Some designs give a small amount of far distance vision too. For general purpose lenses and sporadic computer use, varifocals let you do everything, but you may have to adjust your screen.
So if the visual fatigue syndrome symptoms sound familiar to you, have a chat with your optician. Take a list of which devices you use, how long you use them for, and your working distance for your computer.