Establishing a Comfortable Viewing Distance

If you can see individual pixels on your screen, you are probably sitting too close to your screen. Visual recognition skills, particularly reading, develop on the basis of recognizing shapes, not dots. When you look at the letter "V", you should perceive two angled intersecting straight lines, not two jagged vertical elements or a collection of dots.

For minimum stress viewing of your screen, you should work at a sufficient distance so that you cannot see individual pixels on the screen. A sufficient distance is usually at arm's length. Extend your arms in front of you while you are sitting at your workstation. The tips of your fingers should reach the faceplate of your screen. The arm's-length viewing distance minimizes stress due to focusing at short distances for an extended period of time.

If you have trouble making out characters at a viewing distance sufficient to blend pixels into shapes, consider using a larger font for viewing on the screen.