Hello! I am a US-based web developer and graduate student, 43 years old. I started having difficulty with eye strain when I purchased a new, non-Retina MacBook Air in fall 2014. I had a 2011 MPB that I kept alive for years after that, eventually buying a second one and swapping out parts, because I could use that monitor without pain or fatigue. In researching the issue I found out that I have mild accommodative dysfunction and have done some vision therapy and chiropractic care for that, although at my last visit my optometrist said I no longer need prism (correction for the accommodative dysfunction). I do exercises every morning to manage that. I have used a variety of laptops since then, sometimes connected to a BenQ monitor, which helps some. But the best solution I had found was to purchase a new-in-box 2016 Retinal MacBook Pro in 2018 after that model was tested by Notebookcheck and showed no PWM. I have used that laptop since 2018 with Flux but no external monitor and have eye strain only when I use it for > 8 hrs a day and am not using dark themes and dark mode.

But... I needed to update my OS to Big Sur this week because a client has discovered a bug that only occurs in Safari 14.2.3+ (Safari is the new IE of web dev). After the update all of a sudden I have debilitating eye pain. It feels like some of the worst PWM laptop monitors I have used in the past, very sharp pulling pain around my eyes. I see some people noting above in this thread and others that there are software issues at play: this would be pretty strong evidence of that. This device has been tested to have no PWM, and I still see no PWM when I use my phone camera (though I can't be certain I'm testing correctly). Is this dithering? Is there any way to confirm?

Anyway... I'm going to try to downgrade the OS back to Catalina for now in the hopes that I can convert this torture device back into a work tool. I will also order a Dasung e-ink monitor. But I do need to do a lot of color work for my job. I'm new to this forum and I'm not sure where the good places are to look, but I have the following questions:

  • Where can I find the best solutions others have documented here?
  • Is purchasing a Windows device and disabling dithering still a good solution? I'm not wedded to MacOS.
  • What about the Linux users saying they can turn off dithering? Has that borne out? I have used Ubuntu in the past.
  • Also, what methods are people using to detect PWM and dithering? Or else how are folks purchasing devices with the specs they need? As I'm sure many of you have experienced, once I look at one bad device in a store, my eyes are shot for a few hours, and I wouldn't be able to spot a good one.

Update: I restored my 2016 MBP from an old Time Machine backup. Immediate and very clear difference. Very little eye strain—back to how it was before. It's an old backup, all the way back to Mojave, backup is from May 2020. But I will have to find some way to test and develop for updated browsers from this not-updated device. Lesson learned: despite the fact that this device has no measurable PWM, I am still potentially at the mercy of any Apple software update. TBH wondering whether I should start training for another career. It appears that the devices are just getting more and more aggressive on the eyes. If I can't keep up to date with displays, will I be able to work at all in 5 years?

    lougro Since you have many options to consider I would recommend holding off on the Dasung until you really have tried everything. I’ll chime in later with some other thoughts about your situation but this is important.

      a month later

      Hi everyone!
      My name is Bas. I'm 25 years old and I'm from Belgium.
      I studied mechanical engineering and AI.

      Before I go further I should say that I have health issues apart from screen intolerance, most notably chronic fatigue, which started 7 years ago. I won't go into that here though, although I believe all of my complaints are related.

      Origin of the problem
      I started having serious problems with electronic screens about 2 years ago. I hadn't switched to a new computer or anything, but it was a period of relatively heavy computer use. I pushed through for a few more days, hoping the complaints would fade again. However, soon not just my laptop was giving me trouble, but any electronic screen I came across (TV, phones, multimedia screen in the car... ).

      So what do I actually feel when I look at screens?
      Within minutes, I will start having an uncomfortable sensation of 'pressure' around my eyes. If I continue looking at the screen, this will get worse and after a while I'll get a headache as well. It lasts even after I stop looking at the screen. I'll also have trouble focusing on things (with my eyes). Sometimes it lasts for hours, sometimes for days. I've had 4 attacks of vertigo in the past (very dizzy, eyes panning uncontrollably). Each time, I was behind a computer when it happened.

      What have I tried to solve it?

      • I went to the optician to get my glasses' prescription checked (I've been wearing glasses since I was 7). He said the prescription was fine. Then I went to an ophthalmologist to get more thorough testing done. They said my prescription was actually too weak, and that the basic test hadn't been able to detect this because my eyes' lenses were 'stuck' in a compensatory state. Long story short, I got stronger glasses but they didn't help at all. My problems actually got worse, although I don't know if the glasses are to blame.

      • The only device that I was still able to use without trouble was my trusted e-reader! (Onyx boox note). Desperate to find something that worked for me so I could somehow finish my studies, I decided to buy the Dasung paperlike (an e-ink screen). My complaints were significantly reduced, but I have to say it's not a silver bullet. First of all, I find I'm now straining due to the lack of contrast, as most software isn't designed for black-and-white viewing. Secondly, the screen is quite small, which makes UI items sometimes disappear or pop up in weird places. Finally, the screen is a bit glossy, which makes for harder viewing when there's a lot of ambient light. I can use this screen for about 2-8 hours a day, depending on the activity, but I'm less productive than I could be.

      • I follow a very clean diet, manage my stress levels, meditate, etc. However, I was doing all these things even before I had the screen intolerance... So these are not going to solve the problem for me.

      Closing words
      I have to say it's really reassuring to find other people with similar issues (although I hope we'll all get rid of them), especially people who are as resourceful as you guys! It's really hard to find solutions to problems like this on your own. To be honest, I'd already given up on finding a 'normal' monitor/setup that works for me. But this forum is giving me new hope! Good luck everyone. I look forward to talking to you.

        Bassiehetkoekje

        Hi Bas,

        We have some similarities in that I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue as well. Ultimately, my chronic fatigue had a dietary origin, which whilst not the sole cause of my screen issues, is a big aggravating factor. It might be worth looking at your diet, my biggest chronic fatigue trigger is actually cereal grains (All of them, not just wheat or other glutinous ones). The reason I bring that up, is even though cereal grains are considered healthy, they are not healthy for me. You could find that something you believe to be healthy is actually making things worse for you.

            Seagull thanks for the reply! And great to hear that you found a solution for your fatigue through diet. Have you completely recovered from it?

            I too have tried making changes (many changes!) to my diet throughout the years. I mostly give new changes a month and then revert back if they don't help but... I actually cut out all forms of grains about a year ago and felt a small improvement, so I've kept that in!

            Broadly speaking, my current diet contains:

            • no casein
            • no grains
            • no alcohol
            • no sugar (except the occasional berry here and there 😉 )
            • no high-histamine foods
            • no highly processed foods

            I can't say diet has made a big change for me, but I do consider diet to be very important for good health (i.e. a necessary, but not sufficient condition).

            Regarding

            You could find that something you believe to be healthy is actually making things worse for you

            I completely agree. I don't blindly follow "authority" or "common knowledge" anymore, as they have proven to be untrue for me on multiple occasions. I think the best we can do is try out things for ourselves in a systematic way.

              4 months later
              a month later

              lougro

              FWIW I noticed the same thing on my 2017 13 inch MacBook Pro (non Touch Bar). It was fine on all OS up to Big Sur. When I installed Big Sur I noticed eye strain. I downgraded, it went away.

              The weird thing is I have used Big Sur on other devices and its been more or less OK. So it has something to do with how Big Sur changed rendering on this particular chipset/display I think.

              I also noticed the same thing with Safari 14 on Mac OS. As long as I don't do the Safari 14 update on Catalina, its fine. If I install 14 it causes similar eye strain to Big Sur. I can use Safari 14 and 15 on my iPhone 6s no problem. Not sure what to make of it.

                7 days later

                @asus389

                Good to know that there are other devices you can use Big Sur on. And thanks for the confirmation that someone else has experienced this. I don't have an iOS device so can neither confirm nor deny the pattern with Safari 14 and 15.

                I really think the only solution is to allow users to disable temporal dithering easily, via the GUI, in any OS, advertise all use of PWM at any brightness level, document all temporal dithering used by any software, hardware, or firmware on product packaging and specifications. And make clear exactly which screen is used in a model, so that you can pick the screen in the model you buy. If all that was made clear for consumers we would have a much easier time sorting this stuff out.

                9 days later

                Hi all,

                A question - for PCs, does disabling/uninstalling the the integrated GPU in the Device Manager help stop the Dithering by forcing the OS to use the outboard GPU?

                10 days later

                Seagull My personal opinion on this issue is that the flickering is altering our natural brain wave frequency. Staring at a flickering light induces corresponding and detectable pulses in brain activity. In a typical person, serotonin neurons will act to inhibit these pulses and keep parts of the brain not involved with visual processing from synchronising.

                Is this still your opinion @Seagull? We've seen SSRIs help some people with flicker on here. I wonder if that supports the theory here?

                    ryans

                    Hi,

                    Yes it is still my opinion. SSRIs helping people might support this, though the complexity of the serotonin system and neurology means its unclear. I've been meaning to try some SSRIs, might be interesting to see what effect they have.

                        Seagull Me too, certainly at a low dose. What scares me to try is something called "post ssri sexual dysfunction", which is apparently permanent. It seems to be rare and some physicians don't recognize it...but wanted to let you know to do your own informed research before trying them.

                          Hi everyone! I just found this forum today after a mental breakthrough about what might be causing my eye strain issues, and I'm so happy to be here. That being said, I'm not nearly as tech savvy as many of you on this forum seem to be--just a woman desperately trying to fix this fairly recent problem of mine.

                          I'm wondering if I can quickly give a background and timeline of events, so that people here can give me some advice about what to do next? Basically I work from home basically answering emails all day for my day job, and I'm also a heavy reader and write books as a side hustle, so am on screens many, many hours a day. I'm 31 years old, and I have never had any sort of serious eye strain issues until earlier this year, which began to really manifest in the springtime. My personal laptop is a Lenovo ThinkPad with a matte screen, and my day job laptop is a MacBook Pro from mid-2015 with a glossy retinal display. My phone is a OnePlus Nord N200 5G, which I purchased several weeks ago when my last one died. I seem to have hardly any issues (maybe none at all) with the Lenovo and my phone, and I also have no issues with my e-ink Kindle, but I believe the MBP is causing me terrible eye strain--symptoms are dry eyes, a feeling that verges on a headache, sometimes slightly blurred vision when looking at text, sometimes trouble with my eyes focusing, and sometimes dizziness.

                          When this first started I was doing a heavy editing push for my latest book, so spending tons of time working on screens. I had also recently gotten a new contact lens prescription. I went to my optometrist, who recommended vision therapy. The initial consultation for vision therapy gave me major quackery vibes, and it would have been quite expensive to do the sessions, so I opted not to follow through and got a second opinion from an ophthalmologist and optometrist. The ophthalmologist said not to waste time and money on vision therapy, and the optometrist (recommended by the ophthalmologist) adjusted my prescription down in my glasses and contacts, as she said my power was too high. That was a big adjustment, but I do see great with this new prescription; once my eyes adjusted I assumed that would be the end of my issues… Not so, unfortunately. 🙁

                          Work for my day job has been heavy these last few weeks, and my eye strain feelings are coming back. They're not as pronounced as they once were (no dizziness, THANK GOD), but still are definitely present. It seems to be that specifically when I have been working on my MBP for a while that I start to feel the near-headache feeling. The Lenovo is very comfortable to use. Like I said up top, these symptoms started in the springtime during a heavy screen period. I've only had this MBP since December of 2020, and many days work is light, so my working theory is that heavy screen time + a bad prescription + using the MBP over time has caused my symptoms to manifest. And now I have fixed the bad prescription, but I'm still using screens many hours a day (more so on the MBP in recent weeks), so that is not allowing my eyes to rest up properly.

                          So what do I do now? It seems that people who have issues with MBP screens point the finger at temporal dithering, which is impossible to disable? I think that I should probably ask my IT department for a Windows laptop and hope that works better for me. I'm also using eye drops and today started using a humidifier by my work area. Does anyone have any other ideas for things that I should try? Sorry for this excessively long post, but I am just so excited to have other people to talk to about this and hopefully find some answers.

                            KG89

                            My only idea is to stop using it immediately. It’s possible to over stress your eyes past a certain point with a bad device and then end up with more persistent problems.

                            There are no programs or settings to make a painful MBP running MacOS comfortable (some who run Windows on them experience less discomfort, but that’s far from guaranteed).

                            MacOS hurts starting from High Sierra or Mojave depending on who you ask. Never versions are not better.

                                degen

                                @KG89

                                Edit: You mentioned you aren’t that tech savvy. While I hope my posts are useful please let me know if something isn’t clear. You’re at that early stage in the process of eyestrain/pain where it’s easier to turn things around if you choose your devices carefully.

                                Actually, and I don’t know if this is possible in your situation, but if you can try Windows on that MBP it would prove that the issue was with OS, as many have experienced with High Sierra and newer. Really worthwhile test. This has a decent chance of success since you can presumably use modern Windows on your Lenovo and the 2015 MBP was actually considered useable by many until OS updates ruined it.

                                • KG89 replied to this.

                                    degen

                                    Thanks for your reply, and I'll definitely let you know if there's something tech-wise that isn't making sense! I think that I'll stop using the MBP (which is running Big Sur, I believe) immediately for several weeks and see how that goes, while still continuing to use eyedrops and the humidifier and just generally focusing on resting my eyes. It's all right for me to do all my work on the Lenovo. Unfortunately I'm not allowed to do any sort of Windows installation on the MBP, since it was issued to me by my company. I do think they will probably work with me to send me a different machine, however.

                                      KG89

                                      Same, better or worse if you look with one eye?

                                      • KG89 replied to this.

                                          mike

                                          I'm not certain about that--perhaps I should try a patch.

                                          I've only been using my Lenovo for work this week and have been taking frequent breaks and not using my phone for hardly anything. I'm trying to consciously adjust my lifestyle so that when I have free time during the day, I'm not using that time to look at screens (I'm now working on art projects, listening to audiobooks, and taking more walks). Also when I compose emails for work, I try to do that when mostly not looking at the screen, then go through afterwards for a quick visual scan.

                                          When I was using the MBP and things were getting bad, I had a building feeling that was reminiscent of the burn you feel between your eyes/up your nose when you swim in an overchlorinated pool. I've seen some others online say they've felt the same when looking at a MBP screen. I believe I haven't felt that now since 10/29, so I'm hopeful that I am on the right track and whatever happened to my eyes is slowly healing.

                                            KG89

                                            Hello!

                                            I I were you, I would try in this order:

                                            1. Try lookIng through polarIzed sun glasses and see If anythIng Improves
                                            2. Try lookIng at parallel vIew stereogram and see If It helps to release the straIn after It starts. Or peform sImple exerces for bInocular vIsIon from thIs forum.
                                            3. Analyze If your problems started after OnePlus Nord. If so, put It away for a week and see If It helps.
                                            4. Anayse If MBP feels extra brIght sometImes or makes you lIght sensItIve after usage

                                            This could help you to gather some data about your problem.

                                              10 days later

                                              Hi everyone, I've written another post in the usable smartphone thread but thought I'd introduce myself here too.

                                              Location: London, UK

                                              Occupation: Entertainment industry

                                              Age: 36

                                              First identified: Purchase of a Samsung Galaxy S21 in November 2021

                                              I think I only discovered that I had this issue very recently, in the last week or so with the purchase of a Samsung Galaxy S21. I've used many phones in the past, all with basically no issue at all - with a mix of amoled and lcd panels. The last 5 years I have been using a Oneplus 3 with no issues at all, despite its amoled panel.

                                              At home I have a Pcspecialist laptop from 2017 with an IPS LCD panel that gives me no issues, and an Acer monitor that's a similar sort of age that also no issues. My work laptop is an old lenovo I can use with no issues. TV is a Sony from 2015, again gives no issues. Tablet is an amazon one from I think 2018, no issues. All of these have the caveat that probably comes with any display that using it for too long will give some discomfort, but nothing even remotely like the issues I had with the Samsung within only a few minutes.

                                              The Samsung S21 I boutht the other day however, wow. This was giving me eye strain, piercing headaches, dizziness and nausea. Someone described a sensation in another thread that rang true with me too, that there was almost a feeling of not being able to focus or concentrate on the display properly.

                                              So that's where I am now, in search of a new smartphone that hopefully won't give these issues. I know staring at a light source generally is just not good for your eyes so no device can be 100% problem free, but this really felt next level. It's good to feel not alone, although it's sad we are all in this position.

                                                dev