D'Oh! 
Posted on 11/06/2002 6:43:43 AM PST by Dallas
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The more time an office worker toils in front of a computer, the more likely he or she is to suffer a host of physical, mental and sleep-related ills, Japanese researchers report.
While video display terminal (VDT) use has become commonplace in many types of jobs, there is little information on how long a person can safely use a computer each day. To investigate, Dr. Tetsuya Nakazawa of Chiba University and colleagues surveyed over 25,000 office workers who responded to three questionnaires between 1995 and 1997.
Participants answered questions about the amount of time they spent in front of a VDT, their sleep habits, and physical and mental ailments including headache, low back pain, eyestrain, depression and anxiety. Their findings are published in the October issue of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.
"In our study, we found a significant relationship between duration of daily VDT use and physical symptoms," even after adjusting for other factors that could influence the results, the authors write.
Office workers stuck in front of a computer most commonly complained of headache, eyestrain, joint pain and stiff shoulders.
Mental symptoms such as lethargy, anxiety and "reluctance to go to work," as well as sleep-related problems including insomnia and fatigue, were most common among workers who spent more than 5 hours a day glued to their computer screen.
"This result suggested that the effect of duration of daily VDT use on these scores has a threshold effect, and the prevention of mental disorder and sleep disorder requires the restriction of VDT use to less than 5 hours per day," the researchers write.
While the type of computer work the study participants performed varied considerably, as did the size of the computer used and the work environment, "it should be emphasized that even under such working conditions, our results were extremely consistent over a 3-year period," Nakazawa and colleagues note.
The researchers call for more research into the relationship between computer use and physical, mental and sleep symptoms.
SOURCE: American Journal of Industrial Medicine 2002;42:421-426.
I dunno...I was on the screen all night and I FEEL GREAT !!!!
I've been working in front of CRTs for 20 years, and have never experienced any of these problems.
This computer user gets sick when Clinton gets screen time. Any chance on getting a study done on this?
However, posture plays a HUGE part in how you feel - try to get up and stretch a little every now and then.
Uh...didn't your FRiends say you were looking a little pale lately ? :-)
D'Oh!
I suspect one cause of these problems is that people are working at desk setups that they haven't adjusted (maybe cannot make adjustments) for their personal preferences, height, etc.
Too many people make do with keyboards and monitors at the wrong height, wrongly positioned, or poorly designed. Sometimes this is because they or their bosses are penny wise and pound foolish when it comes to spending money on office furnishings.
About twelve years ago they introduced the portable computer (then it was decidedly bigger than today's laptop) ... with a keyboard that was cramped and often absolutely horizontal; this was unspeakably uncomfortable to type on, especially if the user was accustomed to a more traditional keyboard or alternated between the portable keyboard in the field and the traditional keyboard in the office. Some people have no choice about their keyboard being at ordinary elbow-high table height (or literally resting on their knees), or the monitor being footed on the desk and tilted upward to reflect all the ceiling light. I made a point of perching my monitor on top of something - even if it was last year's phone books - so it's up at eye level.
When I take get my daily dose of FR, I feel just fine.
With a good chair, good pair of eyeglasses and a big bottle of advil, weee, I'm on my way.
Hey, this is a family web site. Watch the language.
Except I use an advil IV drip system.
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