Your digital electronic devices give off blue light that can cause eye strain and may lead to other, more serious eye problems over time. For example, using your smartphone constantly, especially if it’s primarily for texting, e-mailing and web browsing, exposes your eyes to significant amounts of blue light. You can protect your eyes from the effects of blue light by using a blue light filter.
Eye Strain Symptoms
Eye strain symptoms may include one of more of the following:
- A sensation of strain around or between the eyes
- Dry or red eyes
- Blurred vision
- Headaches
- Back pain
- Neck pain
- General fatigue
Blue Light Filters for Digital Devices
Blue light filters are available for smartphones, tablets and computer screens. These filters prevent substantial amounts of blue light produced by these devices from reaching your eyes and won’t affect the visibility of your screen’s display. Some filters are made with thin tempered glass that also protects your digital screens from scratches.
Computer Glasses
Computer glasses are also helpful in reducing the amount of blue light that reaches your eyes from computers and other digital devices. If you don’t need vision correction or you usually wear contact lenses to correct your vision, computer glasses are available without an eyeglass prescription. They can also be specially prescribed to optimize your eyesight specifically for the distance from which you view your computer screen.
If you routinely wear bifocals or progressive lenses, prescription computer glasses will give you the added benefit of a much larger field of vision for seeing your whole computer screen clearly. Keep in mind that this type of eyewear can only be used for seeing objects within arm’s length and can’t be worn for driving or other distance vision needs.
A number of lens manufacturers have introduced special anti-reflective coatings that reduce glare and also block blue light from both natural sunlight and digital devices. Your eye doctor can advise you about which type of vision correction and lens features will best suit your needs for viewing digital devices and protecting your eyes from blue light.
Blue Light Software Solutions
Software solutions don’t filter blue light. Instead, they reduce the screen’s blue light emissions by slightly altering the colours on your digital screen. The colder colours, such as white, blue and green, are exchanged with the warmer colours of yellow, orange and red.
Change Text and Background Colour
A free and easy DIY version of a blue light filter app is to change the background and text colours on your digital devices. This is an especially good option if you mostly read, edit text or work with spreadsheets.
Note that if blue light is even slightly filtered it will result in color distortion. This is inevitable. The more blue light that is filtered the more colour will be affected and colours with a higher blue content will be affected the most.
