I agree with the OP. I have noticed many health-centric threads here over the last few years. That’s fine, however I believe the main discussion should relate to the technology side (it is called LEDStrain).
it’s about narrowing down the root cause of the issue(s). First and foremost, find a monitor you know is good for you 100%, even if that’s a CRT. Then run a known good configuration and a known bad configuration. Then upgrade operating systems/software on the good configuration and downgrade on the bad configuration (if possible). The results should become clear, and this is completely avoiding the minefield of displays as you’re running a known good display. So basically it boils down to GPU Output/Operating system rendering/ Drivers.
I’m also finding if I try some of the latest apps (examples, Firefox, Retroarch, MS Office), these are not comfortable to use. I don’t know how an individual app can cause strain on a known good OS/Driver/GPU. Interestingly, some of the most comfortable apps I can use (mainly emulators) are extremely old versions using DirectDraw, however the image is perfectly stable and colours are accurate.
I’m still completely surprised that I don’t know anybody else IRL with these issues, as the symptoms are so profound for me with new tech I can’t believe there isn’t a problem en masse.
So… maybe the dithering is producing some type of pseudo-flicker that is running at a frequency that we are affected by. In the audio realm, binaural beats are very popular, which stimulates the brain to operate at a particular frequency. This may be the visual alternative.
One of the original points which I profoundly agree with, is that we should not have to deal with this as the consumer. I am tech savvy to a degree but I am nowhere near as qualified as others on this forum. The whole notion of checking updates/DirectX versions and digging into the CLI is dizzying to most users. Bottom line, I walk into a shop, I buy a device off the shelf, take it home, and I can’t use it for more than five minutes. You can get out of anything by putting a disclaimer on the product saying “if you experience X symptoms, seek medical advice”. What happens if the medical advice is all clear? There must be consumer law small print protecting us against this. This was used in video game manuals since at least the 90’s. That’s fine, I don’t play video games for a living, but we do need to be able to access technology in modern society to work and communicate.