What Types of Screen Protectors Can Protect Your Eyes and Skin?

Finding the right type of screen protector to protect your eyes and skin can be easy.

Modern life is not all it's cracked up to be. It turns out that such simple and apparently innocuous activities as looking at the screens of digital devices can have harmful effects on our body and can even damage our skin and make us age prematurely.

But with so many of us glued to our phones, tablets and computers all day long, and then during the evening and well into the night — including in bed — what can we do to protect ourselves from the potentially harmful blue light emitted from these addictive gadgets? While some of us might boldly embark on a "digital detox" for a few days — not using our phones or other devices to give ourselves a rest — for most people that's just not feasible: they have become an integral part of our lives.

At the very least, you should be using a quality blue light filter on your many digital devices to stop the blue light from reaching your eyes and skin. Not all blue light filters are the same, however, and there are many low-quality ones on the market that are just not up to the task. But first, let's look at why digital devices are proving so troublesome to human health, what the actual effects are and why you don't have to needlessly suffer.

Blue light's impact on eyes and skin

The blue light emitted from digital light can be especially harmful to human eyes and may eventually lead to macular degeneration. This is where the eyesight gradually worsens over time. If you spend a lot of time staring at your screen and don’t already require reading glasses, you soon might. It's not surprising that so many of us who sit in front of computer screens all day end up having to go to the opticians for a pair of glasses.

Digital screens can also cause eye strain, which can give rise to a number of conditions that many of us are all too aware of: shoulder and neck pain, headaches, back problems and more. It may seem like you're doing nothing to harm yourself while seated at your office or home computer. It’s important to remember that, not only is it unnatural for people to remain in such a position for possibly hours on end, but also that, in all likelihood, human eyes were never designed to look at digital screens that blast out a wide spectrum of light.

Blue light from digital devices is believed to suppress the production of melatonin in the brain. This means that scrolling through your social media feed before you’re about to doze off will most likely lead to difficulty getting to sleep, because your melatonin — the sleep hormone — levels are too low. As if all of that wasn’t enough, there is also a growing body of evidence showing that digital light may harm our skin and make us look older before our time.

What Types of Screen Protectors Can Protect Your Eyes and Skin?

You may be aware that your mobile, laptop and other digital gadgetry often have inbuilt software that tries to tone down the colour of light emitted. This, it is hoped, will go some way towards cancelling out the amount of harmful light that enters our eyes. However, it's questionable whether such software is effective and many people don't like the effect it has on their screens — turning the screen an off-putting shade of pink or orange — which can ruin the reading or browsing experience.

To really safeguard against the effects of blue light, you need a professionally designed blue light filter. This is applied to the screen of your device and entirely blankets the blue light coming from it, protecting your eyes and skin and allowing you to get a good night's sleep.

Here at Ocushield, we have ophthalmology-based blue light filters for today's popular devices, from smartphones to computer screens. They're easy to apply and won’t break the bank. Using a blue light filter also doubles as a screen protector for your devices, preventing them from scratches and the daily wear and tear that can eventually render them useless, for vastly improved protection all around.