On average, we spend nearly 10 hours each day looking at digital screens.

These include computers, tablets, TVs, and cell phones.

I mean, I get it.

They have a lot to offer.

What's not to love?

Oh hey James!

...James?

Oh wow!

Oh James!

What happened?

What?

This is just how I look when I've been working on a video.

How long have you been?

Who wants to know!?

What are you? a cop?

If you are, you have to tell me!

whoa whoa whoa!

I was just making video about staring at screens.

Oh cool.

Can I help?

Well alright!

It turns out, there's a downside to screen time and it's called Computer Vision Syndrome.

While it sounds like a pretty cool super power, it's actually a not so cool problem that can result from prolonged use of screens.

Staring at a digital screen for hours at a time can have a negative effect on your eyes and back.

It can cause eyestrain, headaches, blurred vision, double vision, dryness, and neck, back and shoulder pain.

And symptoms can be worse with bad lighting, glares, poor posture, preexisting vision problems, improper viewing distances, and the longer you spend looking at your screen.

One study found that just 4 hours of screen use was significantly associated with eyestrain and sore eyes.

24 hours of continued use and you're looking at... well your not looking.

I guess.

At least it'd be very difficult to.

Because digital screens are often brighter than printed text with less contrast and more light, your eyes have to work harder and thus are susceptible to fatigue and strain.

Studies have found that prolonged screen use weakens your visual functions and can cause eye strain.

Looking at a screen also significantly reduces the rate at which you blink.

A decreased blink rate accompanied with an increase in the surface area of the exposed eye, commonly associated with looking at a screen, can lead to dry eye and fatigue.

One study measured the blink rate of test subjects while they played a virtual card game for 10 or 30 minutes in order to see if using eye drops could help.

They found a 40% reduction in blink rate during game play, with the wetting drops doing nothing to improve it.

But there are some ways that you can combat the negative effects of screens.

The American Optometric Association recommends following the 20-20-20 rule to alleviate eye strain by taking a 20 second break every 20 minutes to look at something 20 feet away.

You can also benefit from glasses designed for computer viewing and using your devices' night settings.

For those of you like me who sit at a desk all day, posture and screen positioning are also important.

To avoid neck strain, the screen should be directly in front of you—not to the left or right—with its center 15 to 20 degrees below eye level.

Your screen should also be 50 to 100 centimeters away from you, since screens that are too close require significantly more use of your eye muscles in order to focus.

Aside from eye troubles, staying up for a full 24 hours as we've mentioned before, can lead to a decrease in cognitive function and limits your ability work productively.

The work you might be doing might actually suffer from not getting some rest.

While I don't recommend staring at your screens for 24 hours straight, with the proper precautions and breaks,

you should be able to make it through a long stretch of… whatever the heck James is doing over there.

It's called art Life Nugget!

Read a fricken book why dontcha!

So, what's the longest you've been on the computer?

Do you spend too much time online?

Let me know in the comment section below.

If you enjoyed this video and wanna see more of theodd1sout's videos you should go and check out his channel.

Either you're a dog person or a cat p-URson, but why do I have to pick just one?

Can't I look at these two animals and say that both of them have good qualities that make them amazing pets?

As always, my name is Blocko, this has been Life Noggin, don't forget to keep on thinking!