| Do you know what CVS is? If you read these lines, you
might well have it. CVS stands for Computer Vision Syndrome.
Your optometrist will be happy to oblige if you ask for explanations.
But try to find CVS in your company’s benefit book – even
when you yourself are the “company”. Why is it
that we care so little about vision in the one occupation
which more than any other is based on and caters to our ability
to see?
Eye care has recently consolidated its status of Cinderella
of the health care in Canada, as it is no longer covered
by OHIP for people of working age. Employers did not jump
to fill in the gap by adjusting benefit policies. These policies
have never made special allowances for eye care based on
the type of work of the beneficiaries. While it is an undisputed
fact that that using the computer eight hours a day or more
strains the eye, this did not inspire health care policies
such as regular or mandatory eye checks and more generous
allowances for eyeglasses. Those who are subject to CVS seem
not to fuss about this issue either. After all, intensive
computer usage has a relatively short history and its long-term
effects only now start to ignite some interest.
If my personal experience is any indication, using the computer
so many hours a day does not tell the whole story of eyestrain.
What we do while in front of the computer is the key. For
a developer or user of tame mainframe screens, where character
mode is king, and up to three colours on a black screen is
the norm, the eyestrain does not seem like much. Transition
from one screen to the next is not much of a stress to the
eye. But with client-server applications, with a variety
of frame sizes, shapes, colours and designs, and, above all,
those cute tiny desktop icons, things become very different.
My eyes saw(!) the difference immediately.
Things have ‘progressed’ once the web became
prevalent: there seems to be a contest as to which site is
able to cram more headlines, pop-ups, animated pictures and
other ‘attractions’ on those less than 300 square
inches of a screen that scream for our eyes’ attention.
Only a few distinguished sites have got it that “less
is more” and stick to a simple colour-scheme and a
clean, non-aggresive page design. And we compound the eyestrain
problem with our appetite for surfing and our short patience
- we like to “flip” web pages quickly.
Other jurisdictions seem to do better when it comes to eye-care.
In France, spending more than 20 hours a week in front of
a computer screen is recognized as a work hazard. In the
UK, there is a push for free eye exams. I heard that IT companies
in Western Europe ensure free exams and one pair of eyeglasses
for programmers and the like. Not sure how things fare in
India or other places where a young and driven workforce
is aggressively pursuing the eye-intensive careers in computers.
Eye care specialists teach us all sort of neat things to
do while we work, so that our eyes do not become too strained.
We are advised that the eye has to work harder when reading
from a screen as opposed to reading from paper, because it
has to focus more in order to form the letter image from
pixels. Therefore, among other things, we are supposed to
blink frequently, even use fake tears, stare for 20 seconds
away from the screen every twenty minutes, and take frequent
breaks. Software has been created that prompts the user to
take eye-breaks. Although a study from Cornell University
tells us that these breaks increase productivity by a significant
margin, I don’t think that eye-friendly software is
going to become as wide-spread as programs that monitor your
key strokes, your C drive or your wanderings on the Internet
any time soon.
Sadly, health issues associated with the legitimate usage
of computers commands far less concern and action than the
illegitimate ones. Maybe things will change as the IT work
force (and the general population of computer-users) age
and passes this hard earned insight to the next generation.
Or maybe computer screens of the near future will make this
a non-issue. Until that happens, we should exercise some
vision by thinking more on how we design computer applications
and how we use them.
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