Smartphone Eye-gonomics
According to Deloitte an average Irish person picks up his or her smartphone 55 times per day to call, send a message, seek entertainment or just chill. Deloitte states that we are more and more aware of our over-reliance on our phones and that we are making conscious efforts to reduce screen time. Yet on the other hand, smart phones keep on adding new functionalities – like payment – that make it hard to put the device down more often.
Intensive use of your smart phone poses creates musculoskeletal issues (joints, muscles, nerves) and discomfort to your eyes. During our ergonomics assessments xx% of the issues that are brought up can be linked to intensive smart phone use. Most often we encounter neck issues.
These kinds of musculoskeletal issues can be resolved by being more mindful about your posture when using your smart phone. In this blog I would like to give you three important recommendations for your posture – or your eye-gonomics – when checking your phone:
1. Make sure that your viewing angle is slightly below eye level
As you can see on the first photo the phone is far below eye level, which results in neck issues. Although you may need a bit of time to get used to this posture, the posture on the second photo will leave you with less stiffness in neck and shoulders.
2. Hold your device at a comfortable distance from your eyes
As you can see on the first photo the distance at which we hold the device can be too large, which makes our eyes work harder than they should. Be easy on our eyes and allow yourself to hold the phone a bit closer.
3. Adjust your screen resolution, contrast and brightness for comfort
Start using the buttons on the top of the screen more frequently to adjust your screen settings to the environment that you are working in. You will quickly notice that this is much gentler on your eyes.
4. Finally, allow your phone a frequent break.
For every 30 minutes of use, I would recommend a 1 to 2 minute break to do stretching, preferably some WhatsApp stretching.