Ask HN: How do you read/look at screens? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you read/look at screens?

I program a lot. After a few hours I can't easily read whats on the screen due to my eyes being uncomfortable. Sometimes I can look at my phone or read my kindle but even that can be a problem. I've gone on walks listening to books which I think is a partial solution but some days I only can do 4 hours of screen times while other days I do 9

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You might look into QLED, RLCD, or E-ink monitors. There’s a lot of posts online about how they reduce eye strain or that you just don’t feel the “glare” that you normally get from looking at a screen. I use a QLED monitor for programming and an e-ink monitor for reading papers / anything static, and it makes a big difference. But, they’re expensive. I wouldn’t do it if I weren’t in software and looking at a screen constantly.

Do you have any recommendations for e ink monitors?

Also, are there any good e ink tablets?

I don’t know of any e-ink tablets. As far as e-ink monitors, I did a fair amount of research and landed on a Dasung 13.3”. It’s small compared to a normal monitor, so you’re not going to be split-paning VSCode and a terminal, it’s $1000, and it’s not good for things that move around a lot (you’ll have to use the etch-a-sketch-type clear screen button pretty often), but it is actually pretty good for reading PDFs, docs, etc etc which I end up spending a lot of time doing. Reading any more than a page on a normal monitor is just such a pain, I start to lose focus pretty quickly. Monitor arms that let you move them around easily helps a lot too, so it’s not sitting in front of your face while you’re coding. So it all costs money, but does work pretty well (for me at least).

I'm using dark mode provided by "HN Enhance" (A Firefox extension that enhances news.ycombinator website). Makes life a little easier. There are warnings about the `blue light' from some screens being harmful to the eyes. An optician told me recently that berries are healthy foods for our eyes.

You should talk about this with an ophthalmologist. It could depend also on the lighting. Check that too.

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