Anti-glare filters for CRT moniters
Man, is it a pain to find reviews on anti-glare screens! I swear, I looked through a bunch of Amazon, BizRate, etc. places, and didn't find a single review.
So, I decided to check out what the various options meant. There are many: polarizing, anti-static, optical glass, VLF/ELF field reduction (also called anti-radiation), mesh, privacy, AOA and ISO 9241-7 compliant.
This first article is what sent me off looking for more. It's good, but it doesn't talk at all about the anti-radiation, which is something I was really interested in. I think that there are harmful magnetic fields associated with CRTs (more due to something my mother said about the pseudo-CRTs causing massive amounts of breast cancer at her newspaper job), and so I'd like to stop them. But, I can also see it being a total gimmick. It seems to add between $20-$100 to the anti-glare screen too.
http://www.healthycomputing.com/office/buyersguides/glarefilter_buyersguide.htm
From this, I decided that I'd probably want a polarizing screen. I definitely don't want a "privacy" screen, because I like collaborating with other people at my work. Anti-reflective coatings sound sketchy, but some of the other articles I found seemed to indicate that the technology has improved a lot.
The item that I want to buy is the Kensington SlimLine anti-glare screen. It sticks to your CRT monitor, is supposed to get rid of magnetic fields, and do other good stuff. It's definitely not optical glass, however, and I don't know if I should hold out for optical glass. Bah.
Another article I found was by a place that sold the anti-glare screens, so it's not clear how much I trust it. Anyway, it's here:
http://www.ergoindemand.com/monitor-screen-ergonomics.htm
Incidentally, OSHA's website was entirely unhelpful in this search. It mentions that you could get an anti-glare screen if you're unable to avoid lighting issues by having ceiling-directed light. It doesn't say anything about what kind, or what's useful in them. Oh well.
There's another article that I found that was very interesting about the use of ergonomics in schools. Most students who come out of college have issues with ergonomics. I found that my wrists started hurting after 3 months in the workplace, and I went to get help about 9 months after college. The article talks about the importance of giving kids ergonomics training, and the importance of good ergonomics in general. I like the end of the article where they give a few of the common cheap ways of getting around things. If you need lumbar support, roll up a jacket, or use a roll of paper towels. (The truly frugal teacher could use the same roll of paper towels, unrolled to differing lengths to get different thickness.) For a foot rest, or a monitor stand, you can use yellow pages. I also had the thought that by putting the monitor on open yellow pages, you can modify the height of the CRT monitor. Here's that article:
http://www.electronic-school.com/2000/01/0100f2.html
The best of the best however, was this site, Office Ergonomics Training
http://office-ergo.com/index.html
They include citation of various studies in many of their suggestions. They also include definitions of the various terms (MVC is maximum voluntary muscle effort, and mean recommendation is 10-14%), and analysis of the studies! So cool. They have almost convinced me to have my monitors lower than they currently are placed to allow for more acceptable computing positions. The problem is that they don't say which positions are acceptable. I wonder whether they offer classes or something....
Here's the Visual Ergonomics page, which doesn't appear to be linked off of their left links list:
http://www.office-ergo.com/setting.htm
Anyway, if anyone has any tips or questions about Visual Ergonomics, and specifically anti-glare filters, post a comment!
So, I decided to check out what the various options meant. There are many: polarizing, anti-static, optical glass, VLF/ELF field reduction (also called anti-radiation), mesh, privacy, AOA and ISO 9241-7 compliant.
This first article is what sent me off looking for more. It's good, but it doesn't talk at all about the anti-radiation, which is something I was really interested in. I think that there are harmful magnetic fields associated with CRTs (more due to something my mother said about the pseudo-CRTs causing massive amounts of breast cancer at her newspaper job), and so I'd like to stop them. But, I can also see it being a total gimmick. It seems to add between $20-$100 to the anti-glare screen too.
http://www.healthycomputing.com/office/buyersguides/glarefilter_buyersguide.htm
From this, I decided that I'd probably want a polarizing screen. I definitely don't want a "privacy" screen, because I like collaborating with other people at my work. Anti-reflective coatings sound sketchy, but some of the other articles I found seemed to indicate that the technology has improved a lot.
The item that I want to buy is the Kensington SlimLine anti-glare screen. It sticks to your CRT monitor, is supposed to get rid of magnetic fields, and do other good stuff. It's definitely not optical glass, however, and I don't know if I should hold out for optical glass. Bah.
Another article I found was by a place that sold the anti-glare screens, so it's not clear how much I trust it. Anyway, it's here:
http://www.ergoindemand.com/monitor-screen-ergonomics.htm
Incidentally, OSHA's website was entirely unhelpful in this search. It mentions that you could get an anti-glare screen if you're unable to avoid lighting issues by having ceiling-directed light. It doesn't say anything about what kind, or what's useful in them. Oh well.
There's another article that I found that was very interesting about the use of ergonomics in schools. Most students who come out of college have issues with ergonomics. I found that my wrists started hurting after 3 months in the workplace, and I went to get help about 9 months after college. The article talks about the importance of giving kids ergonomics training, and the importance of good ergonomics in general. I like the end of the article where they give a few of the common cheap ways of getting around things. If you need lumbar support, roll up a jacket, or use a roll of paper towels. (The truly frugal teacher could use the same roll of paper towels, unrolled to differing lengths to get different thickness.) For a foot rest, or a monitor stand, you can use yellow pages. I also had the thought that by putting the monitor on open yellow pages, you can modify the height of the CRT monitor. Here's that article:
http://www.electronic-school.com/2000/01/0100f2.html
The best of the best however, was this site, Office Ergonomics Training
http://office-ergo.com/index.html
They include citation of various studies in many of their suggestions. They also include definitions of the various terms (MVC is maximum voluntary muscle effort, and mean recommendation is 10-14%), and analysis of the studies! So cool. They have almost convinced me to have my monitors lower than they currently are placed to allow for more acceptable computing positions. The problem is that they don't say which positions are acceptable. I wonder whether they offer classes or something....
Here's the Visual Ergonomics page, which doesn't appear to be linked off of their left links list:
http://www.office-ergo.com/setting.htm
Anyway, if anyone has any tips or questions about Visual Ergonomics, and specifically anti-glare filters, post a comment!