One of the major reasons I’ve been trying to reduce my screen time is that I spend too much time in front of different displays, typically because I look at them all day for work and for my hobbies.
But that sometimes comes with headaches.
As a result, I’ve been taking the initiative to significantly reduce my screen time on weekends, especially when the weather is nice, and I have a stack of paperback books to read outdoors.
Even then, I noticed that my headaches didn’t go away despite the lack of screen time from my Samsung Galaxy S25+, Google Pixel, Amazon Fire TV, and various laptops and desktops.
I did some research into why, and it turns out it isn’t only about how often you are away from the screen, but also about what you are doing while looking at it.
Based on that, I swapped some settings and changed my practices, which have lessened the chances of getting headaches.
The 20-20-20 rule isn’t enough for me
I still would get headaches despite the breaks I took
It turns out there is a 1-2-10 rule you should follow when looking at screens. Essentially, this rule concerns the distance in feet between your phone, monitor, and television screen.
This has taught me a bit about my habits. My phone’s distance is fine since I never look at it that closely, but my monitor and sometimes my TV are an issue.
Since I moved my Sony PlayStation 5 to another room and kept my Nintendo Switch 2 away, I’ve been using my TV a little extra in the evening.
That’s when I noticed my head started pounding a bit more after a session, especially when it had been a grueling day at work where I spent many hours writing.
The other problem I have is with my monitors for my laptop and Chromebook. Usually, I work on my Chromebook or laptop depending on the task.
That’s when I noticed this was likely an issue: the distance is difficult to maintain consistently because of the small mini-desk table setup I have for them, compared to the one I use for my desktop in my office.
Basically, they are too low, and my neck is always pointing downwards, meaning that my neck posture is a problem.
Poor neck posture can give you headaches.
I noticed this as well, and it also explains why some couches didn’t work for me in the past: they had poor neck support.
So, no wonder this has been an underlying issue.
More recently, I have been able to do more work on my desktop (fixed technical problems), and my desktop and chair help with the distance and rule.
Headaches in the last two weeks have become less frequent during the week, relieving me of my physical discomfort.
I changed my phone settings to improve my reading time
Every little bit helps while you’re looking at the screen for longer periods
I focused on improving the quality when viewing my display. One of the easiest solutions was to work on how I read content off my smartphone.
The first step for me was to adjust the brightness. Recently, I have been trying to turn off adaptive brightness.
While I appreciate that this could save my battery and adjust itself outdoors, I thought that, because I am light-sensitive, it might improve my vision health by introducing some consistency.
So far, I have found that I prefer adjusting the brightness manually. It turns out that because I work near a large window-paneled patio door, my screen sometimes changes when a lot of light comes through, and I hold my device close to it.
As a result, the adaptive brightness can sometimes be too slow to readjust on its own, so calibrating the brightness myself has helped my situation.
The other two settings I changed are blue light filtering and reading mode. Depending on the smartphone model you own, this setting should be called Eye comfort shield or Night Light.
There are a few third-party apps that can do this if you don’t have this option on your phone, but it should be in your Display settings.
When you use the new light mode, you’ll notice it has an orange tint. It might seem a little strange at first, but it is actually quite helpful.
Still, the warmer coloring is actually better for your eyes, as well as lessening the blue light effect, which suppresses melatonin production — a hormone used to help you fall asleep.
Then I started using reading mode more on my device. I didn’t think I needed it until I began spending more time with my apps.
If you use a Samsung Galaxy, the Samsung Browser has a nice reading-aloud feature for highlights.
But for other stuff I can’t use it for, like my text-heavy apps, I began relying more on reading mode.
You can do this in two ways. The first is through Google’s Reading mode app, which you need to download from the Play Store. The other is through TalkBack if you mainly want audio feedback.
I prefer Google’s Reading mode app. Using it lets me make the text bigger, change the font to be more pronounced, and even tinker with the spacing.
To me, this helps since I am nearsighted, and some text doesn’t respect the distance rule because my eyesight isn’t so great without glasses.
In general, it works well when I require it to, but my only qualm is that it doesn’t seem to work in the Reddit app — I need to use the web browser version.
But overall, it’s still pretty handy for everything else.
How you position and spend time with apps and browsing on your smartphone is only one battle to tackle.
How much screen time you designate is also important. I had to cap my time on Reddit and the Character.AI app, as the Digital Wellbeing tools show where I spent the most time.
I’ve also disabled the Google Gemini shortcut to lessen my exposure.
If you’re unsure why you spend five hours a day staring at your phone’s display, the easiest thing to check is the Digital Wellbeing menu on your smartphone. It gives you a breakdown of how much time you spend per app.
