Every new monitor tested causing eye strains

jzizzle

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Not sure why this is happening but the first monitor I got was a ThinkVision P24h-2L 23.8" QHD Natural Low Blue Light Monitor. After using for 1-2 hours, my eyes was in horrible condition. I had to rest my eyes for several hours to recover. Eye was straining and very dry. Very painful. I messed with the brightness and increased the font size but no help at all. Returned it and kept using my Asus 20" monitor. No eye strain when I am using this very old monitor.

Decided to try a different monitor, the Samsung 22" FT45 Series. Has the same blue light filter technology as the Lenovo. Eye strain isn't as bad, but I still get them when using this monitor. So this is going back.

Why are the larger monitor have such small text? When increasing the font size, it not as crisp as the older Asus 20" monitor.
Also, currently on my Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 3 laptop. No issue with eye strain on these older monitors.

Not sure what the deal is. Guess it's just me.

Going to try an Asus branded monitor and see if that helps with eye strains.
 
Try a 42" LG OLED with font scaling boosted to 150%. No eye strain at all. Sounds like you are just trying to squint at too small of a screen.
 
My current working theory about eye strain is that it is caused by tension in eyes caused by trying to focus on monitor's surface.
Unfortunately monitors do not have perfectly flat surfaces but are more like transparent 3d structures. They are not terribly hard to focus at to get almost perfect detail resolution but you cannot focus on them the same way as you would on other surfaces eg. paper. Then different types of LCD panels have slightly different requirements to how you should or can focus on them.
You have something like eye adaptation to conditions which when change but eyes try to do what they were trained to do well might cause them to overshoot with what is needed and try to focus too much on something they should not focus at all and rather find something else to focus at.

In other words it might very well be that you got used to your "Asus 20" monitor" and try to focus on new monitors in exactly the same way. This if these new monitors are sufficiently different might by itself cause issues.
If you would instead treat in your brain/eyes new monitors as something completely different which requires you to learn it, learn how to even look at it, then if you do it slowly enough you should be able to learn.
By "slow enough" I mean not forcing sharp vision immediately and let eyes figure out how to see. This is common issue actually: people consciously always try to have sharp seeing and do actions which bring eyes to sharp seeing even at the expense of eye strain. Instead they should consciously aim at eye relaxation and never attempt at clear seeing... unless its life or death situation, which it almost never is... but guess what: eyes do not know that and especially if you get emotional about new monitors performance they will interpret strong negative emotions as sign of threat and will prioritize clear seeing at expense of their health, even if they have no idea how to see at given thing (new monitor surface in this case) and/or know how to look at that old monitor but the new is different.

None of the thing your eyes gaze at you should never try to forcefully focus at. If with relaxed eyes thing you look at is not very clear do not make it clearer but rather think about idea of sharpness. Can imagine single super small dot. Eyes will find how to look at this thing and this process doesn't take super long. It is just not instantaneous. It would be quicker if not for years of conditioning how this same class of thing (monitor in this case) should be looked at. Monitors are different, need special handling so them having separate way of seeing is normal. You can have multiple such special cases of objects you need different way of focus at to see so no worry you have to make another one for new monitor and keep old one for old monitor.

BTW. Regarding brightness: it should not be super bright, especially on some monitors. Then again it should not be too dim. Eyes need sufficient amount of light to see correctly and having object you gaze at for hours too dim doesn't help.
Some people make this mistake they start to believe bright monitor light causes them eye strain and get emotionally invested in this notion, then kinda deliberately* cause eye strain when they see bright monitor light - do not fall in to this nonsense.

*) Its super easy to experience eye strain / pain consciously. Likewise its easy to have subconscious program which causes some muscle in eye to strain when you see some specific trait or even know something about what you look at
 
When I first had eye strain it was when programming on small screens, close up, for hours.
The cure was a much larger screen and sitting a lot further away from it. (ie iiyama 22" - though remember resolution was lower than 1080p in those days so text was larger)
I later took that further and built a projector from a 15" 1080p LCD monitor, it worked amazingly well. This was when shop bought projectors were crap and super expensive.
I stayed on that projector for years until decent 1080p projectors became the norm and bought one which lasted me years more.
Then large TVs (42"+) with decent quality came out so moved onto a Plasma because most LCD monitors in those days were still too small and/or crap.
Since then its been large TVs or utlrawide monitors from at least 1.2 metres away, increasing text size where necessary.
I never have any issues.
 
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Get your eyes looked at first, its not worth risking them.
You might cause irreversible problems.
My eyes are fully recovered after switching back to the old Asus 20". Also I have no issues on my X1 carbon Gen 3 laptop. Something going on with the new screens.
 
My eyes are fully recovered after switching back to the old Asus 20". Also I have no issues on my X1 carbon Gen 3 laptop. Something going on with the new screens.
I'm not sure what that has to do with the price of fish.
Its your eyes though, I can only suggest things.
 
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There are actually over 100 niche causes of eystrain, not just these posted here, far beyond just blue light and flicker (PWM).

Being Blur Busters, we even have people coming to us because of motion-blur-derived eyestrain/headache/nausea/sickness (probably not your issue, BTW). The point being, is we have to keep an open mind to the niche eyestrain issues, that are often unexpected. Everybody sees differently, different prescriptions, 12% of population is colorblind (to varying extents), some need more light, some need less light, focussing strain, screen texture, etc. People solve this in widely different ways. It's a giant rabbit hole.
 
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My eyes are fully recovered after switching back to the old Asus 20". Also I have no issues on my X1 carbon Gen 3 laptop. Something going on with the new screens.

Actually. What are you using to drive the new monitors? and what model and resolution is you old Asus 20"?
 
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