on our rest at home at work in our cars
everywhere how many hours per day do we
spend in front of different displays
isn’t it more than the time that you
spend with our beloved ones how many of
you remember our moms telling us don’t
sit so close to the TV is bad for your
eyes how many well all of us so well 20
years later
I am a computer scientist specialized in
computer vision I’ve always had this
passion of using my skillset and change
the world first I thought I’m going to
do that with my master’s thesis and then
PhD well none of those happen then I
thought maybe I should start from myself
and work on some of my bad habits of
interacting with technology because I
spent a lot of time interacting with
technology by the way my husband and I
have the bad habit of going to bed
using our displays and this is like us
going to sleep every night so the goal
of the display industry is to present us
with content which is as close as
possible to what we see in real world
that’s why we have 20 displays
high-dynamic-range displays curved
displays bigger ones more colorful
holographic all kind of them but at the
end of the day the end recipient of the
displays are our eyes how much do we
know about our eyes did you know that
our visual system is very complex and it
stretches the whole length of our brain
recently a lot of physiologists have
done research on the side effects of
being exposed by displays more than four
or five hours a day there are three main
categories of side effects I’m going to
briefly talk about the first one is eye
fatigue we’ve all experienced more or
less getting fatigued in front of this
place but why does that happen
our eyes are capable of perceiving
enormous amount of information
brightness colors 3d but when we forced
them to focus on a 2d screen which is in
a specific distance from us they are
challenged to fill in for the missing
information that’s one of the reasons we
get fatigued the second side effect is
insomnia maybe you have heard about how
using your displays before going to
sleep will might cause insomnia but why
in the dark our eyes work completely
differently from the way they work in a
normal room lighting or a bright
environment but did you know that our
displays are not taking that into
account they are built under the
assumption that we are always in a room
lighting what happens is we get ya
when you have your displays in your hand
going to sleep like I always do in the
dark our neurons are more sensitive to
the color blue they are more responsive
to the blue and blue light is what
controls our melatonin production which
controls our sleep cycle so when we are
exposed with the light blue our body
thinks it’s still daytime and doesn’t go
through the adaptation to get prepared
for sleep so what can we do up with this
knowledge like now we know about it but
so what can we ask consumers and
end-users voices could our concern and
ask for display industry to adjust for
this the answer is yes in 2015 there
were a lot of articles in conferences
blogs forums about the side effects of
using this place before going to sleep
that’s why some well-known mobile
manufacturers took that into account and
added a mode that turns your displays
into orange at night well there that’s a
consumer awareness that is consumer
pressure in the direction that
technology takes even though that’s a
point solution and it’s not a ideal
solution but it’s a very quick response
from the industry to the consumer
concerned going back to the side effects
the third one is a more severe one this
is what dr. Victoria Dunkley which is a
very well-known psychiatrist calls
electronic screen syndrome electronic
screen syndrome is a dysregulation in
the brain this dysregulation results in
in a Nabeel inability to modulate one’s
mood attention and correct response
environment and children are more in
danger of this risk it happens because
interacting with this place for more
than four or five hours a day shifts our
nervous system into a fight-or-flight
mode in simple words interacting with
this place too much display time
literally damages our brain so what is
the solution what can we do we cannot
stop working we cannot stop using our
displays or cell phones or laptops the
physiologists or the one who did all
these great research on how our eyes
work and the side effects but
technologists are the one who are
building the displays we need to bring
physiologist onboard to work with
technologists to build healthier
products having this in mind I
co-founded a company two years ago with
my physicist co-founder to find the
solution we built a multidisciplinary
team of experts physiologist software
engineers and hardware engineers to come
together and find perfect solutions
early on we did her mind there are three
main influencers on the way we see and
interact with our displays the first one
is the environment lighting we talked
about this and these plays are not
taking this into account our eyes
totally work differently in different
lighting environments the second one is
our personalized visual system we have
unique vision and each of us have unique
visual system our age culture background
gender all of those affect the way that
we see ten percent of men are colorblind
and some women see more shades of color
sorry that’s the way it is
our eyes deserve custom-fit displays the
same way that our feet deserve the right
size of shoe
the third influencer is the technology
itself so we are we are limited to the
technology than the platforms so we meet
the hardware engineers to come on board
with us and adjust our software solution
the personalized software solution to
work on different platforms now I want
to walk you through a real example that
we have probably experienced all of us
in the dark when your screen is adjusted
to the dark you lose the content
visibility so with the current
technology this is what you see in the
dark on a dim display using our
multidisciplinary solution this is what
you see the same story is valid for a
sunny day this is what you see on your
screen in a sunny environment with the
current technology and with our
multidisciplinary solution this is what
you see it will take a couple of years
to get into all the displays and get to
mass production but meanwhile why would
I do what would I do to work on some of
my bad habits so first take 20-20-20
rule I would after every 20 minutes of
working with a screen I would take 20
seconds looking at somewhere which is 20
feet away – I just take a second and
adjust your screen brightness with the
environment it’s simple when you’re in
the dark it should be dark and when
you’re in a sunny environment your
screen brightness should be maximized to
put less pressure on your eyes 3 I will
try to keep at least one winter distance
from the screen 4 I will
well hesitate this one I will try to not
to use my screen or display or laptop
before at least 1 hour before going to
sleep and if my husband managers to do
the same thing maybe eventually we get
some sleep
and five and more importantly as end
users and consumers I want to make sure
that I always have a positive
contribution to the path the technology
takes by standing up and demanding
healthier and more efficient products
going back to my childhood dream of
changing the world well who knows maybe
I managed to change a small part of it after all thank you