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You know, as we train lots of different people in ergonomics, and other health and safety, we're always open to people coming with us with customized questions. And one of the questions we received not long ago was, "Hey, what do we do when we are either a tech start-up, or we're a type of industry that uses multiple monitors at once, as it's related to our work?" And I thought that was a fantastic question, and we'd like to address that right now. Really, under the OSHA ergonomics rule, we are still going to apply multi-viewing surfaces, in a similar fashion as everything else. Whether it's a document in a monitor, a monitor in a monitor, several work stations, or otherwise. In this case, we're talking about a dual, or multi-monitor system, that could be applicable to programmers, tech start-ups, or even dispatch centers, or other monitoring services like utility centers, where they're monitoring electrical situations, or plumbing situations for municipalities. So you have this situation that's the perfect storm for a lot of awkward head movement from screen to screen. We're gonna apply the same principles as we would in many of the other teachings that we've already covered. Some of these would be as I'm gonna list next. If the monitors have to be side by side, we're going to move them as close to each other as possible to minimize the side to side head movement. We're gonna want to know that the font size is large enough, with the 20 to 40 inches of distance from the eye to the work surface, that we don't have to squint or lean forward to be able to view what's on the screen appropriately. Thereby allowing us to stay in a nice neutral, good posture while doing our work. If a certain work or project is going to require us to have multiple screens that might even be in say, an eclipsed type of fashion, we would want to make sure that we have a portable work station that allows us to proper work surfaces so that in a chair that rotates, we can simply rotate around so that we're facing our screen, with the appropriate mouse and keyboard, with the appropriate space underneath the desk for our thighs, and lower legs and feet. Knowing that we're gonna be working in a neutral position, then we shift to the next monitor, you're able to actually work on that monitor straightforward, and so on and so forth. The big key here is going to be taking those breaks frequently. We oftentimes, we'll talk about the 20 20 20 rule, every 20 minutes, look up for at least 20 seconds, and stare at an object at least 20 feet away. This is gonna help with the eye strain related to any type of monitor viewing, but with this type of behavior, it's never a bad idea, that if you begin to feel the symptoms of strain of the neck, the back, the eyes, the head, the arms, the wrists, the fingers, take that 20 second break every 20 minutes, and even incorporate the viewing of an object about 20 feet away. But this would be one of the most appropriate ways that I could see applying these ergonomic rules to some very popular industries that could be prime for this type of problem.
Proper positioning and frequent breaks from computer monitors can be crucial to prevent eye and other postural strain.