Screen glasses - for work in front of the monitor

In today's age, everyone spends several hours a day in front of a screen. Whether laptop, PC, tablet or smartphone, you are constantly surrounded by digital devices. And for the human eye, this means one thing in particular: stress. Many people who rely on laptops and PCs for their jobs complain about Dry eyes. All these symptoms are part of everyday life for them:

• Itching
• Burning
• Foreign body sensation
• Redness
• Headache
• Difficulty concentrating

But special screen glasses are considered the solution.

Why is the screen so harmful to the eye?

Every age group is affected by the negative consequences of working in front of a screen. Researchers have discovered that the often short distance between the eye and the monitor can lead to myopia even in young people. The human organ of vision is still developing until the age of 30, and it is precisely this development that is negatively affected by the digital environment.

Visual deficits also become noticeable more quickly due to screen work. From the age of about 40, the lens can no longer process changes in distance at the same speed as, for example, at the age of 20. In front of the PC, however, your eye is confronted with different distances all the time: From the screen to the keyboard to your colleague at the other desk and back again. Many professionals sitting at a desk then tend to lean forward to see better. This, in turn, can lead to tension, back pain or even postural problems.

Screen glasses help: What you should consider

These special vision aids are designed for short viewing distances and rapid changes of gaze, perfect for working in front of a monitor. However, there are a few things you should keep in mind when buying such screen glasses.

• The version:
  Of course, you choose your glasses frame depending on the design, but for screen glasses a certain lens height is essential. This is because the special lenses are specially cut in a similar way to varifocals. This results in different visual zones. In the largest zone, you will then see everything sharply at a distance of about 50 centimeters, which corresponds to the distance to the screen. At the upper edge, colleagues and your surroundings become clearly visible, i.e. everything a little further away. In contrast, at the lower edge of the lenses, everything in the immediate vicinity becomes sharp, especially the keyboard and the desk. Of course, the screen glasses must also fit comfortably; after all, you wear them eight hours a day.
• The glasses:
  For the lenses, you can choose between glass and plastic. Screen glasses can be made from both materials, the decision is ultimately a matter of taste. Similar to varifocals, it can take a little time for the eyes to get used to the new screen glasses, regardless of the choice of material. In any case, lenses made of plastic are lighter and therefore more comfortable to wear than their glass counterpart. Do not worry that the plastic version is immediately covered with scratches. Thanks to modern techniques, the problem of quickly scratched plastic lenses is a thing of the past. Today, experts only recommend glass in screen glasses in particularly dusty work environments, for example in construction or production halls.
• In any case, anti-reflective:
  The lenses of your monitor glasses should definitely be anti-reflective. Otherwise, the many different light sources in the office would only distract and disturb you. If you like, you can also have lightly tinted lenses fitted to your monitor glasses to increase contrast. You can easily try out the different tint variants at the optician.

Costs are often covered

According to the guidelines to Ordinance 3 of the Labor Law, the costs of protective and preventive measures, in particular those for the training of employees and all other costs arising from measures ordered, are to be borne by the employer. If this point is fulfilled, the employer pays the costs for your monitor glasses. The situation is different in Germany, where you can have an optician confirm that you need special screen glasses for computer work. If this is the case, then your employer is obligated under Section 3 of the German Occupational Safety and Health Act to assume the cost of these screen glasses.

This article is based on the information about the anatomy of the eye available on fielmann.ch are to be found. Fielmann AG is the market leader in the field of consumer optics and operates over 700 branches in Europe.