If your workday includes staring at a computer screen for long periods of time, you may have already experienced the eyestrain, tired eyes, headaches and other symptoms that go with working on a computer. These symptoms have come to be known as computer vision syndrome or CVS.
Computer vision syndrome in the workplace can cause you to make mistakes and hinders your ability to get things done.
Problems in the Workplace
According to an American study, the most frequent health complaints among computer workers are vision-related. It seems that 50 to 90 percent of computer workers suffer from eyestrain, dry eyes or other eye irritations, blurred vision or double vision.
An increasing number of employees are using computers at work, which means that CVS is becoming a major health issue.
Increasing Worker Productivity
Another study suggests that there is a direct relationship between the vision of computer workers and their productivity in the workplace. The study found the following:
- There’s a direct connection between proper vision correction and productivity, particularly evident with intricate and/or repetitive computer tasks such as data entry.
- There’s a direct connection between appropriate vision correction and the time needed for a computer worker to perform a task. Tasks took much longer to do when the subjects wore glasses with less-than-optimum correction for computer work.
- Even if the computer worker is unaware of having a vision problem, reduced productivity can still occur. A worker’s performance can suffer by as much as 20 percent from even minor vision problems.
Computer Glasses Are Different
Computer glasses differ from regular eyeglasses or reading glasses. The simplest computer glasses have single vision lenses with a modified lens power prescribed to give the computer user the most comfortable vision. The modified lens power relaxes the amount of adjustment required to keep objects in focus at the distance of the computer screen and provides the greatest field of vision.
Because computer lenses are prescribed specifically for use with a computer, they’re not suitable for general purpose wear.
Computer Eyewear and the Bottom Line
Data collected from the study strongly suggests that improving the vision of workers using computers results in more productivity in the workplace, as well as improving the comfort of the workers.
Employers who invest in computer eyewear for their employees experience a positive impact on their bottom line.
- Employees can reap significant gains in productivity and cost savings by providing computer vision care to all employees who use computers. This is true even for employees not yet experiencing CVS symptoms.
- Musculoskeletal problems may also be caused by computer-related vision problems. These problems can be minimized or eliminated altogether by including computer vision care in a comprehensive ergonomics program.
- Employees performing particularly demanding visual tasks, such as accounting, document editing, computer-assisted design work, electronic design and engineering, could benefit even more from computer eyewear than the average computer worker.
- A computer vision benefits program will likely also reduce incidences of workers’ compensation claims among computer workers.
The study confirms that investing in customized computer eyewear for employees will result in substantial cost savings in the end.
