Online School’s Negative Effects on the Eyes
And a Solution to Help
Due to the COVID-19 situation, schools were forced to go online, including mine. This meant that we would be doing online school. Online school isn’t too bad, but it leaves a bad strain on your eyes.
Virtual education requires a ton of screen time. From the seven hours of Zoom calls that replaces in-person school, to the hours after school that you spend on homework, you are constantly on your computer. This is not healthy, both mentally and physically.
According to UAB Medicine, “Digital eye strain often leads to dry eyes and puts an extra burden on the muscles that help the eye focus. Also, the eyes do not blink as frequently when looking at digital devices, which causes faster disruption and evaporation of the film of tears that protects the surface of the eye.”
I have personal experience with online school and I can say that I have felt immense eye pain after a day of school due to constant blue light exposure. My eyes constantly hurt and so did my head. Because of this, it was hard for me to focus while using my laptop, especially for long periods of time.
After dealing with those for a long couple of weeks, I decided that there had to be a solution for this. First, I did some research on how to solve this problem. This led me to the 20–20–20 rule.
The 20–20–20 rules states that for every 20 minutes spent staring at a screen, you should look at something that is 20 feet away from you for 20 seconds. This works because it takes about 20 seconds to fully rest your eyes, so it reduces a build up of stress.
After learning about this, I decided to try it. I set a 20 minute alarm on my computer and went on with my work. Every 20 minutes, when my alarm rang, it was very disruptive. It made a loud noise and once even came off when I was talking to my teacher! But in terms of how I felt, I could feel a difference. It was annoying to do, but it worked.
During that week, I was thinking of better ways to set timers for myself and for it to be less interruptive. I thought of a couple different solutions but nothing seemed right. Then the idea of a Chrome Extension came.
I was able to find a simple template that had the very basics to get me started.
The Chrome Extension that I created, “Eye Watch” is very simple to use. After downloading, you simply click on the icon that pops up on the side of your search bar. This will automatically turn on the timer for 20 minutes. You may change the timer by clicking on the same icon and choose whichever setting that you prefer.
After I created “Eye Watch”, I wanted to share it out, so people can use this and benefit from it. I first started small and just shared the link to all my friends. Then I shared it to my robotics team. They put it on our socials and FIRST saw it and retweeted it! And finally, I shared it to my district and the schools in my county but unfortunately they weren’t able to do a mass push of the extension.
Please do try out my extension Eye Watch and let me know what you think of it! Any feedback is great feedback!
