Usually about 25” from a 21” LCD. Sometimes as far as 29”. I can’t get closer (comfortably) than about 18” without my reading glasses.

I’m about the same — maybe an inch less. I have two 19” Dell flat screens.

24” from a 23” Mac Display

I’m about 31” from a 24” display. I used to have a 19”. The big one is actually burning my eyes out. I hate it.

I think we all remember our parents telling us not to sit too close to the TV.

Just measured, and my eyeball-to-screen distance ranges from 16” to 30”, depending on how I’m sitting. Typically, it’s around 20”.

burning my eyes out

Yes, the iMac a bit too bright, and you can’t lower the brightness enough!
What I do is make sure there’s plenty of ambient light in the room.

BTW, the reason that 21” works for me is that it’s just beyond the threshold of being able to see the vertical lines of the screen.

24” from a 21 ” display.

26 inches from my 23” flatscreen Mac Cinema display. I calibrate with a Gretag and can adjust brightness as I like..

ChrisL

15” to 30” inches from 21 inch LCD monitor, but really, I’m only guessing.

I find it best to changes positions frequently.

-=®=-

Health and safety rules not to forget. Take regular breaks from the monitor to safeguard from damage to the eyes.

can adjust brightness as I like

Thanks Chris, I’ve recalibrated.

About 50 to 60 cm.

(Just to be annoying, it’s metric. :p)

I sit about 30 inches from a 19” display at home, at work I have a 23” widescreen display but my position varies constantly depending on what I’m working on.

I position the front of my head so it’s about 20 to 24 inches from a 19 inch flat screen. I’m short-sighted and used to look at it from a few inches further away with my spectacles on. But since the optic nerves were damaged by my aneurysm in January last year I have to contend with a light moire pattern made up of patches of light and shade, and linear distortion. Due to those problems the spectacles are no longer effective at close range and I often move closer to the screen to “see around” the distortion, in effect looking at things at magnified resolution.

Elf and safety, yep.

j a m e s

About 25”. The screen is on a separate part of the desk, which is lower than the part the keyboard is on, the bottom of the screen starting ab. 3” from the tabletop. The result is that I look slightly down to it, which is good for the neck.

Hmph! 34”–40” depending on where I sit myself and, I expect, time of day. This is from a 14” CRT. And people wonder why my display runs at 800x600. ;)

To the left of my monitor is a large bay window — I’ve often wondered if looking out of this frequently as I do counts as a “break”? It does involve significant change of focusing distance. If not then it’s just the tea breaks!

From 21” to 24” from my 19in. monitor. About 30” from my 17in. monitor which holds my Photoshop pallets and email. (spell check gave me a choice of Photo shop or Photos hop)

Sharon

32-34” from a 19” Sony LCD at home, probably a bit further away from a 19” Dell LCD at work.

I know I do need to get my eyes checked out, but some of you guys do seem awfully close to me, and that’s not just a focus thing. I’m sure if I had some 20 plus inch widescreen display, I’d want to move back further.

About 21” from a 23” LCD monitor.

Generally about 24” from my 20” iMac, but sometimes I lean in closer. I try not to.

At home, 18 inches from a tiny clamshell iBook...

Work is another story.

24 inches from my macbook. And 9 feet when i’m working on the 8 foot wide projector screen.

One of the best things I ever did was to get a set of glasses just for working on the computer. At around age 50 I got bifocals, and immediately I began to have discomfort when working at a computer.

One day I was talking with an airlines ticket agent [before we made our reservations via computers] and she said “hold on, honey, I’m just back from lunch and I gotta get my computer glasses on.” I right away forgot about the tix and asked her about this. She said her eye doc had prescribed single-vision lenses for looking at the monitor at work.

I went to my eye doc next day and got just that. Right away the discomfort across my shoulders went away. The main problem with this is that I cannot see much beyond my arm’s length. If I forget to take them off when I leave my office, I often walk past other staff members and have no idea who they are unless I see and hear them frequently and know their general shapes and sounds. That’s a problem in a building with a couple hundred employees.

At the office, looking at a 19” monitor [I forget what make it is], I wear the glasses against my head. Right now, at home working ob a 17” Macintosh laptop, I have to shove them down my nose to see better.

If bifocals bother you when looking at a monitor, get single-vision lenses just for looking at the monitor.

powers

Will, I did the same thing. Mine are bifocal on the bottom and trifocal on the top. I look at the computer screen with my trifocals and my bifocals for reading and writing as I work. I love them. I can’t see any distance in them, of course.

31-26” (I shift in my seat a lot) from a 20” Apple cinema display when I’m at either of my desks. The rest of the time I’m considerably closer to my 17” Apple laptops.

I had my monitors built into the inside of my eyelids. So about 1-3 mm. It makes it convenient for working when I’m sleeping.

At home: 17” ¨PowerBook G4 and at my office 23” flatscreen Mac Cinema display at about enough distance to see what I’m working on.
;^)

>> Will, I did the same thing. Mine are bifocal on the bottom and trifocal on the top. I look at the computer screen with my trifocals and my bifocals for reading and writing as I work. I love them. I can’t see any distance in them, of course.

I think single-vision lenses tuned to my distance from the monitor are far better than bi- or trifocal lenses. This way I devote all my lens space to the project on the monitor. & since I’m setting books, that means I must also have constant reference to a ms or a set of proofs lying right in front of me. So all is in the same plane when I look.

When I want to look out the window to read placards in protest marches going up the street to the state capitol I must put my bi-focals on.

powers

I have three pairs of single-vision glasses.
“Out-and-about” for long distance, “reading” for close (reading), and a pair I just keep at the computer for 20”—25”, because there is a gap between the other two. Actually, I have another pair of prescription-sports glasses that I keep in my sports bag. If I was a real designer, I might even have yet another pair with tiny rectangular frames for business events so that I look cool like a designer is supposed to, but that’s just like bifocals, which I don’t get.

It took me a couple of weeks to get used to my blended trifocals but now I like them bigtime.

ChrisL

PS: Nick, they are not even rectangular so I loose on the cool designer look :-)

I’m usually at arm’s length from any of the three computers I work at daily. Though as the week wears on they tend to get a little further away and a little higher.
For some reason, I have found that having a very small desk light near the monitor tends to really soften the harsh contrast of the screen.

I’m between 18” - 20” away from mu monitor. A while ago I was having problems with my neck and back and so I raised my monitor with some of those old stock-super-tick-heavy-books we used to get on the mail. So now my monitor is eye level and all my aches and pains are gone. I now look straight at the monitor, seat straighter and I do recommend people to try it.
Jorge

24”-30” from a 20” (1600 x 1200) and 13” (1280 x 800) (Macbook).

Time to move up to a 24” I think!

Well, now I am about 24” away from my 24”iMac

Just got out my trusty tape measure and I’m 20.5” from my 17” PowerBook.

Jeff Fisher | Engineer of Creative Identity | Jeff Fisher LogoMotives