If your eyes hurt after looking at screens, don’t assume the culprit is blue light. You might spend extra money on a solution that doesn’t help much.
“Blue light” refers to higher-energy visible light toward the cool end of the color spectrum. It streams from the sun and, to a lesser degree, our phones, tablets, computers and TVs. Concerns about it have grown as people spend more time each day staring at screens.
Major eyeglasses retailers offer protective coatings that block blue light. Warby Parker sells blue light filtering for an additional $50, while LensCrafters can charge more than $100 extra for lenses that filter blue and ultraviolet light.
On Amazon, dozens of brands now sell nonprescription blue light glasses — the best-selling option has more than 100,000 positive reviews. Even Apple’s iPhone offers a “Night Shift” mode that makes your screen appear more yellow after dark.
There’s no question our eyeballs are hurting: Doctors made a new diagnosis, “computer vision syndrome,” for people whose eyes don’t take well to constant screen gazing. But blue light is actually a minor factor, eye experts say. Sunshine, holding screens too close and forgetting to blink are all bigger threats to our vision and comfort, according to eye doctors.
Three eye experts who spoke with The Washington Post said the usefulness of blue light glasses has been overstated. The American Academy of Ophthalmology, for its part, doesn’t recommend glasses that block blue light “because of a lack of scientific evidence that blue light is causing lasting harm to eye health,” clinical spokesperson Ami Vadada said.
If slapping on blue light blockers isn’t the answer, what should we do if screens are hurting our eyes? We asked the experts:
Is blue light bad for my eyes?
Blue light comes with some benefits for mental and physical health. It’s risky for your eyes in large doses — but those don’t come from consumer electronics.
The sun is a much more powerful source of high-energy light than your phone screen, said David Ramsey, director of ophthalmic research at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center in Massachusetts. Gadgets aren’t bright enough to hurt our eyes, and we don’t yet know the cumulative effects of years of phone use.
Blue light could affect sleep, as well. Phone settings let you change your screen to a warmer color spectrum at night and dial down the brightness. (On an iPhone, go to Settings -> Display & Brightness -> Night Shift.)
But if you suspect your phone is messing with your sleep, you’ve probably got bigger problems, Ramsey said. Scrolling social media at night exposes us to content that makes us excited, upset or anxious, he said, and using your phone right up until you fall asleep can wind up your brain and make it tougher to drift away.
Do I need blue light protection on my glasses?
“Blue light protection isn’t going to hurt, but it’s not necessarily going to significantly help,” said Melissa Barnett, director of optometry at the University of California at Davis. So paying more at LensCrafters or Warby Parker for a blue light coating might not be the best use of your cash. One 2021 study found no discernible difference between blue light glasses and placebo pairs.
Barnett said that though blue light lenses are overhyped, she values how they get people thinking about eye health. Treat any investment you make in blue light blockers as an experiment: Do they relieve your symptoms? How do they compare to purposeful blinking, regular breaks or moisturizing eye drops?
Neither LensCrafters nor Warby Parker responded to questions about what evidence or insights make them offer blue light protection at an upcharge.
In 2017, a regulating body in the United Kingdom fined retailer Boots Opticians for misleading advertising about the risks of blue light and efficacy of blue light blockers.
Everyone’s eyes are different, and it might take a visit to an optometrist and an eye exam to learn which accommodations will actually make a difference for your comfort using screens, she said. You can even bring in your phone, tablet or laptop so your eye health provider can look at your posture and settings. Do you need a new prescription, some artificial tears, more regular breaks or a higher desk? Your optometrist can help you discern.
What should I be doing instead?
Experts agreed the most common cause of eyestrain is simply not blinking enough.
Humans normally blink about 15 times a minute, but when we’re using screens, that rate drops to about six times — a more than 50 percent decrease. For heavy screen users, that can mean a whole day of insufficient blinking and dried out eyes.
Another contributor is holding screens up to our noses. Ideally, computer and TV screens should be about three feet away from our faces at a downward angle of about 10 degrees, Barnett said. She also recommends a “20-20-20 rule”: 20 minutes working, then a 20-second break to look at something at least 20 feet away.
If you’re worried about disrupted sleep, a phone-free hour before bed might take you further than changing the temperature of your phone display, but feel free to try both, Ramsey noted.
Most important: Treat comprehensive eye exams the same as teeth cleanings. You need one about once a year so an eye care provider can check for signs of the 270 diseases that affect the eyes, Barnett said.