Screen height, distance and glare: getting the display right

Screen position is where the cheapest wins are. None of the three fixes below requires equipment in most cases, and between them they account for a large share of the neck pain and eye strain reported in DSE assessments.

Height

The top of the screen should sit roughly level with your eyes when you are sitting upright, so your gaze falls slightly downward onto the middle of the display. Looking down at a fixed low screen holds the neck in sustained flexion. Looking up is worse still, because it also dries the eyes.

If your monitor stand does not go high enough, a ream of paper or a couple of books under it costs nothing. A proper riser or arm is tidier and frees the desk space underneath.

Distance

About an arm’s length is the usual starting point for a typical monitor, though a larger screen wants to be further back. If you find yourself leaning in, the answer is almost never to move the screen closer. It is to make the text bigger.

Glare and reflections

Glare makes you squint and lean, and it is one of the most common causes of screen-related headaches. Two rules cover most cases:

• Never put a bright window directly behind your screen. Your eyes are then adapting constantly between a bright background and a darker display.
• Never put a bright window directly behind you either, because it reflects off the glass.

The answer is usually to turn the desk ninety degrees so the window is to one side. Where that is impossible, blinds you can actually close during the brightest part of the day will do it.

Brightness and contrast

Screen brightness should roughly match the brightness of the room. A screen set far brighter than its surroundings is tiring; one set much darker makes you lean in. Schedule 1 specifically requires brightness and contrast to be adjustable, so if yours are locked down, that is a finding.

Two screens

If you use one screen most of the time, put that one directly in front of you and the second off to the side. If you genuinely use both equally, centre yourself on the join between them. What you must avoid is sitting square to a desk with both screens off to one side, which means a permanently twisted neck.

Varifocals and bifocals

Varifocals put the reading correction low in the lens, so wearers tip their head back to find it. If someone in varifocals reports neck pain, lower the screen slightly below the usual guidance and raise the question of dedicated occupational lenses at their next eye test.

Resting your eyes

The 20-20-20 rule is easy to remember and works: every twenty minutes, look at something about twenty feet away for twenty seconds. It relaxes the focusing muscles, which is what actually causes the tired, gritty feeling at the end of a screen day.