Dry eyes with multiple monitors

Multiple monitors can dry your eyes more than one screen because they spread your work across a wider, often higher field. You turn and glance constantly, stare harder to track several windows, and blink less. Screens set too high open your eyes wider, exposing more of the surface to air. Keep the main monitor straight ahead and slightly below eye level, keep the others close and level with it, and build in full blinks.

Why multiple screens can be harder on your eyes

One screen already lowers your blink rate, because focused looking tends to suppress blinking. A two- or three-monitor setup adds several things on top of that:

• Constant scanning. Eyes jump between a chat window, a spreadsheet and a dashboard, and that searching keeps them wide open.
• Higher screens. Stacked or oversized monitors push part of the work above eye level, and looking up widens the gap between your lids.
• Side angles. A screen far to one side makes you hold your eyes turned for long stretches, which many people find tiring.
• More brightness. Several glowing panels can make a room feel glary, especially when one is much brighter than the others.

A wider opening between the lids means more of the eye’s surface is exposed to the air, and the tear film evaporates over a larger area between blinks. Screens and your tear film explains the single-screen version of this; here the focus is on layout.

How should dual monitors be positioned?

There’s no single right layout, but a few principles hold for most desks:

• If you use one screen most, center it directly in front of your keyboard and put the second one beside it, angled inward.
• If you split time evenly, put the seam between the two screens straight in front of you, so each is only a small turn away.
• Keep both at the same height and roughly the same distance, so your eyes don’t refocus with every glance.
• Set the top edge of each screen at or slightly below eye level. You should look a little down at the middle of the screen, not up.
• Angle side monitors so they face you, not the wall, and keep them close enough that you turn your head rather than strain your eyes sideways.

Laptop plus monitor setups

A laptop on the desk next to an external monitor is one of the most common setups and one of the hardest on the eyes. The laptop sits low and close, the monitor sits high and farther away, and every glance between them means changing angle and focus. Raising the laptop on a stand to match the monitor’s height, and adding an external keyboard, makes the pair behave more like two matched screens.

Stacked, vertical and ultrawide screens

• Stacked monitors: the upper one forces an upward gaze. Use it for things you check occasionally, not for your main task.
• Vertical monitors: tall screens for code or documents put the top lines high; lower the stand so the first lines are near eye level.
• Ultrawide monitors: curve them toward you and sit far enough back that the edges don’t require hard turns.
• Three or more screens: arc them around you so each is roughly the same distance from your eyes.

Office air around a big desk setup

Trading floors, dispatch centers, control rooms and design studios pack many monitors into small spaces, and the electronics add heat that ventilation has to carry away. That often means a steady flow of conditioned air across the desks. Check where the ceiling diffusers are. If a vent sits directly above or in front of your chair, ask facilities about a deflector, or shift your desk position. A small desk fan aimed at your face for comfort works against your eyes; aim it at your chest or hands. Dry eyes in a heated office covers winter office air in more detail.

Blinking and breaks with more screens

More screens make it easier to never look away, because there’s always another window to check. Build in small habits:

• Every time you switch tasks, close your eyes fully for a second before you start the next one.
• Look out a window or across the room for a few seconds every 20 minutes or so.
• Match the brightness of all your screens to each other and to the room, so none glares.
• Turn off monitors you aren’t using; an empty bright screen at the edge of your view still draws the eyes.

Eye drops at a multi-monitor desk

Quell’s label gives its Uses as For use as a protectant against further irritation or to relieve dryness of the eye, and its directions as Apply 1 drop 3 times per day in each eye. For many desk workers, that maps to a drop before the workday, one around lunch and one in the late afternoon. Quell is designed to reinforce the tear film’s oil layer to help reduce moisture loss, which is what long, low-blink screen sessions work against. Read the complete Drug Facts before first use.

Keep the bottle in a desk drawer rather than on top of a warm tower or next to a monitor’s vents. The label says Store between 15° to 30°C (59° to 86°F). The label’s tip line reads Do not touch tip of bottle to any surface to avoid contamination, so put the cap back on right away, since a desk collects dust and crumbs. Eye drops for computer users covers the rest of the workday.

When a better layout isn’t enough

If your eyes still ache, burn or blur after rearranging your desk, an eye exam is worth scheduling. Your prescription may not suit the distances your screens sit at, and some people benefit from glasses set for computer distance; that’s for an eye doctor to decide. The label’s advice also applies: Stop use and ask a doctor if you feel eye pain or changes in your vision, if irritation or redness continues, or if the condition worsens or persists for 72 hours.