Health Consequences of CRT Monitors? 306
DigiMan asks: "I was wondering, what are the effects of working on a CRT are on your health - long term. It has recently bothered me that EVERYONE seems to be switching to LCD's - I noticed that Bill Gates was one of the 1st people to do this, even when the cost was super high, and many, many government offices switched to the much more expensive LCD's - despite budget cuts and having to go with the lowest bidder strategy they operate under. Was this ONLY for style and space savings? Is there some health consequence that no one talks about publically. I know that they do emit very low amounts of X-Rays and have a 60Hz magnetic field as well as a 12.5 kHz electro magnetic field (for the raster scan). I work in front of typically 3, 19" CRT's for 12 - 16 hours per day at an average distance of 18". Can these magnetic fields cause Leukemia, or anything else? Is being behind the a cathode ray tube that bad for you?"
Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:5, Informative)
There is also a book by an eye doctor named William Bates (kinda a punny name for April Fools) where he talks about how to restore your normal eyesight through training. He mentions in his book that reading at close distances strains your eyes enough to distort the lens or something like that.
For reference, the rate of change of my eyesight (nearsidedness) has slowed down since I started using flat panels, but that could just be because I'm getting older. I would recommend taking breaks once or twice a day, going outside and looking out long distances.
(I hope this wasn't some kind of weird April Fools Ask Slashdot article)
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:2)
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:2, Funny)
As a prosperous young man, Dr. Bates was referred by his staff as Master Bates.
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:2)
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:3, Interesting)
Would you want to stare at a lit flourescent tube for most of the day? Would would expect your customers to do this? Well, a CRT is a flourescent tube, and a window with a white background is a fully-lit flourescent tube. Guess what this does to your eyes
The common white background is a visual metaphor for paper. But paper isn't a glowing flourescent tube. And note that publications that are often read outdoors (newspapers, paperback books) are usu
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:2, Informative)
My eyesight has not changed since then, over 15 years ago, and I've been a professional programmer all this time (to say nothing of long hours at home playing games or surfing on top of it.) Clearly from my anecdote, computer screens stop nearsightedness from getting worse.
I shall now make pointless generalizations based on one a
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:2)
Your eyesight takes a bit longer
Well my equally invalid evidence (Score:5, Interesting)
Now I'm a computer junky, I use them all the time, at work and at home. Until about a year ago, it was always CRTs. I now have an LCD at work, but still a CRT at home (which I am soon going to replace with another).
So in my case, an excessive amount of CRT usage doesn't seem to have caused any nearsightedness. Also not being nearsighted is counter to my genetics, my mother and father are both nearsighted, as is my sister who doesn't make much use of computers and got her glasses much younger than I did.
Again, just a personal anecdote and not a valid representation of the overall situation, but it runs completely counter to yours. I know it's compelling to think your experience is representitive, but it's very often not the case. Trust emprical research, not personal anecdotes.
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:3, Insightful)
I t
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:2)
The real reason: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:2)
my friends and I regularly get together and laugh over the health consequences of CRT monitors. I think its hillarious. One of my favorite topics is VDU WORK AND THE HAZARDS TO HEALTH [lhc.org.uk] its a laff riot!
sarcasm aside, I guess it wouldn't be that suprising if it was a joke article.. seeing as how today is all about funny funny joke suprises! I for one am really suprised by all the funny funny joke stories. I fall for everyone!
wait
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:2)
Check it out at:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hecs-sesc/whmis/ [hc-sc.gc.ca]
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:2)
With the LCD, I don't suffer from screen glare as with my CRT. That lets me keep the window open, allowing me more natural light and fresh air. I'm sure that all cont
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:2)
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:2)
I also suffer from poor eyesight. What I've noticed is that I can spend more time in front of an LCD monitor without feeling the eyestrain I used to experience with a CRT. In the CRT days, I could only code for about three hours before I began getting severe headaches and that "sleepy eyed" sense of being visually tired. With the LCD, I can go a full workday (which may or may not be a good thing...) switching between Windows and CLI Linux without any noticeable irritation.
What has worked for me... (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Use the best CRT monitor you can get your hands on. I've noticed that my eyestrain actually goes up working on my laptop versus my CRT (a 22" NEC MultiSync FP-series set to the highest possible resolution and very tiny fonts). It's one of those things you have to try for a few days before you realize how nice it is.
Re:What has worked for me... (Score:2)
You have a tendency to blink less and your contacts dry up.
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:2)
Like most of those reading this (who are employed, not still in school, or worse - unemployed), I spend the bulk of my day looking at a computer display. Last year, when my vision had gotten worse for the 4th year in a row, my eye doctor told me to stop looking at CRTs and start using LCDs. My boss got me a 17" LCD for my work system, and my (fantastic) wife got me an Apple Cinema Display for my birthday. Since then, I've gotten rid of the Cinema Display as I've gone
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:2)
Who knew that being a smoker had any health benefits! I take at least that many smoke breaks a day...
Re:Probably bad for eyesight. (Score:2)
I developed slight nearsightedness at around age 16. It took another two years before I needed correction in order to drive.
About two years after that, I started spending a *lot* of time in front of computers. It was my third year of university, and there were many long nights of coding in the lab. My eyes began getting worse at an alarming rate of -0.5 to -1.0 per year. My optometrist wasn't surprised when I told her how long I spending in fron
Re:I worked with a woman... (Score:2)
Yes (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, that might be caused by something else...
Re:Yes (Score:2)
Re:Yes (Score:2, Funny)
Zinc (Score:3, Interesting)
Guess what activity makes you lose 5 mg of zinc? Uh huh. At 3 times per day, you've used up your daily dose of zinc!
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes (Score:2)
I've also never complained about the free crap
Or maybe I'm just cranky. Two complaints in one post.
Bad for your eyes (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bad for your eyes (Score:4, Insightful)
I am running 1280x1024 res at 75Hz using a 5 year old video card and monitor.
Re:Bad for your eyes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bad for your eyes (Score:2)
Re:Bad for your eyes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bad for your eyes (Score:4, Interesting)
LCD's have a different sort of refresh, the 60 hz isn't really a big deal unless you're talking about a fast moving action game. CRT's work by zapping phosphorous spots with an electron gun, immediately after being zapped it begins to fade, to perhaps 50% brightness in 20ms, about the time the gun makes a return trip. So a CRT pulses in time to its refresh rate; and wouldn't you know it, the AC current pulses at 60Hz, means some kinds of lights will also pulse at 60 Hz. Put the two pulses together and the can create an interference pattern that will drive some folks bonkers, strain you eyes subtly, etc. etc.
An LCD pixel on the other hand works like a switch, the pixel is on, letting the back light through, until it is told to turn off. The 60Hz refresh rate only corresponds to how often the pixel "might" get told to change, there is no pulsing.
Of course these are some gross generalizations and I'm sure someone will pop up to tell me how I have it all wrong, even when I'm right.
Re:Bad for your eyes (Score:2)
" The 60Hz refresh rate only corresponds to how often the pixel "might" get told to change, there is no pulsing."
See:
"Since LCD monitors do not employ phosphors, refresh rate is not a concern. Basically, the transistors in the LCD remain open or closed as needed until the image changes. This can be a point of confusion for some consumers, however, since most graphics cards still "ask for" a refresh rate setting. This is due to the analog nature of existing graphic
Re:Bad for your eyes (Score:2)
Re:Bad for your eyes (Score:2)
(Do the video camera test - point a video camera at a CRT and the picture of the screen gets that flicker effect - but it won't with an LCD.)
Re:Bad for your eyes (Score:2)
That number of "60hz" you see is fake, presumably for the benefit of the OS or vid driver but it has no actual bearing on the performance of the LCD itself.
monitor tan (Score:5, Funny)
Re:monitor tan (Score:2)
http://www.mystique.net/cybertan1.htm [mystique.net]
Health consequences (Score:5, Funny)
I, for one (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I, for one (Score:2)
Mostly Desk Space (Score:3, Interesting)
For me personally, Yes. It's all about the style and convenience. I can actually see my desk now.
For our SOC personnel that are in front of multiple large screens for an entire 8 hour shift, I think it is a nice side benefit that they are not being bathed in magnetic fields all day.
But they still look cool and take up less space. Not too mention, generate a lot less heat.
You do make an interesting point about being behind multiple tubes. I believe most measurements are made from some distance from the front of the tube.
Once again in a scenario like a call center or in our SOC this would tend to be the case when you have rows of monitors.
Re:Mostly Desk Space (Score:2)
Um? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmmmm.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hmmmm.... (Score:3, Informative)
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/
The topic was slightly different, but several threads talked about benefits of lcd vs crt.
i was looking for another stupid ask slashdot again. Ah well, funs over.
Yes. (Score:3, Funny)
ha-HA!
Simpson know all (Score:5, Funny)
In episode 2F07, Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy. In it, Homer finds himself in his childhood home, and the living room wall has a shadow of Homer as a child burned into it by the Radiation King TV set. The scene then shifts to his memory of watching it in the refulgent radiation of TV the set in the process of creating that distinctive shadow on the wall.
Thus, we have answered your questions: USE LCD until such time it is determined to produces some other kind of Sexual Inadequacy Radiation.
Even Bill Gates? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Even Bill Gates? (Score:2)
>> even when the cost was super high
>
>
You don't get rich by writing checks!
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Even Bill Gates? (Score:2)
yeah, cause I'm sure the cost is a big concern for him huh?
After Customs impounded his ultra-rare import Porsche, he was heard to remark "Well, there goes a million bucks". What I want to know is this: does he have those sexy 23" Apple cinema displays?
scientific tests? (Score:5, Insightful)
doctors say to take breaks, when doing lots of reading, be it lcd/crt/book/newspaper anyways...
20-20-20 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:20-20-20 (Score:5, Funny)
Unless your room is a sphere 19 feet in diameter, I'm sure you can sit in the corner and stare along the hypotenuse.
Re:20-20-20 (Score:2)
I have heard the same thing from my eye doctor.
These are guidelines. If you want to be healthy, do this...
Its like "Drink 2 liters of water every day." I'd probably be in better shape if I did, but I still don't.
And by the way, if your room is 19x19 and you're too fat and lazy to get up, roll your chair to the corner and look to the opposite corner. You'll be looking at somet
Re:20-20-20 (Score:2)
Personally I go outside, smoke a cigarette, look at the clouds and generally chill.
Radiation (Score:3, Funny)
Go ahead, try it... put your nose up to your LCD. Feel the heat? That's your face cooking right there. Never had that problem with a CRT before. Brain cancer, sure, but no cooked face. I'd rather be pretty than smart.
Eye strain and some radiation w/ CRTs (Score:3, Informative)
But anyway the other problem is radiation. For the most part, the front is well shielded although some do leak out but the sides and back are not as good as the front. In some companies, as soon as someone is pregnant, their CRT is replaced with an LCD.
Of course, in the long run, LCDs save a lot more energy and that's a good thing by itself.
Re:Eye strain and some radiation w/ CRTs (Score:2)
It's Healthy! Like Radon! (Score:2)
For more info on Radon Health Mines... and this is NOT an April Fools... visit here: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/MTBASradon
Some of my inlaws are freaky-nutty suckers and go in for this crap.
Re:It's Healthy! Like Radon! (Score:2)
Man, that's just nuts. But then again:
So I'm guessing that by the time the radiation gets damaging, they're pretty much too dead to care.
Umm.. (Score:2)
If you're modeling your life after Bill Gates, you've got worse problems than LCDs over CRTs.
They're always watching.. (Score:2, Interesting)
http://slashdot.org/yro/99/10/25/2039238.shtml [slashdot.org]
And they're STILL watching.. (Score:2)
Have a read for the interested:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/pet2004-fpd.pdf [cam.ac.uk]
OF COURSE NOT (Score:2, Funny)
it's great to have millions of high speed electrons sprayed at your head all day!
it's good for you.
it gives your brain conditioning... like a nano-massage... and a tan, you're brain gets a tan.
Also really good? letting a pitching machine hurl baseballs at your face.
There are two concerns (Score:5, Informative)
More worrisome, the x-rays being emitted out the front are carefully regulated for health reasons. However this doesn't apply to the back, which typically has 3-7 times as much radiation coming out of it. Lots of offices are setup in such a way that you are staring directly at the back of a co-workers monitor. So, your three CRT setup?
Should be perfectly safe. For you.
An unexpected benefit (Score:2)
Ever thought about operation cost?? (Score:2)
They cost less in the end because they are so more energy efficient. This will save money in the end because of the drop in power consumption and thus power bills. When you have about 500 lcd monitors they are probably going to use less energy than 250 CRTs.
I could post a 400 page treatise about the danger (Score:2)
Space, power, risk (Score:2)
Electrical consumption (Score:5, Informative)
They have a higher up front cost, but when used 40hrs a week (and many employees leave computers on 24x7 with a screensaver)... the savings in electrical consumption make up for the cost (some say as little as a year, some say about 2 years).
When you have a larger company with 500-1000 computers, each with a display... if you can cut 1000 units down 50%... that's a considerable savings.
Some companies during the blackouts in CA pushed laptops. Not only did it encourage people to do a little work on weekends... but it cut down on power consumption in the office.
A display can last through several CPU's. The technology doesn't change that fast. Unless your a graphic artist it's irrelevent. A 7 year old 19" CRT is just as good as one bought today if it's taken care of. For most users the really subtle differences don't matter. By an LCD today, and your investing in the next several years. Get one with DVI/VGA input, and your in good shape for most users. Just swap out the CPU's every so often.
It's not just about space savings. It's cost savings.
The other thing to note is that CRT's contain a few pounds of Lead, mercury, and other hazardous materials. Several states have (or are proposing) disposal taxes for CRT's. So in the future throwing one out may cost you some cash. IT departments are well aware of this. Throwing out 1000 CRT's at $50 a pop.. that's $50,000 in additional costs.
I wrote a paper that discusses this a bit last year for an Environmental Biology course (incorporating my Business MIS studies). You can find that here [accettura.com]. It discusses the environmental impacts of the CRT among other problems. LCD's aren't perfect, but they are much better.
Extravagant Billionaires (Score:2, Funny)
And man he had to save his pennies! Poor Guy!
No blinking refresh rate (Score:2)
LCDs on the other hand are still slow enough that they look constant to me. Even at the 60Hz they run at. They even look more constant than a CRT at 100Hz. The only LCD I've seen that I can see refresh is a ginormous IBM LCD with some ungodly resolution.
Just go to a best buy and look at the LCDs and CRTs that they
Even? (Score:2, Funny)
I bet it was beans on toast for the Gates' following that spending ludicrousy...
It ain't for the cuteness (Score:2)
Unfortunately my employer has found a source of LCD panels that are blurry, but at least they don't flicker.
Re:It ain't for the cuteness (Score:2)
Most LCD panels can not be blurry, because the individual pixels are actually electrodes drawn on the inside of the glass with conductive material. I'm sure it would be possible to make an LCD panel that would be blurry on purpose, but naturally they have perfect geometry and focus. Your employer must've had to work hard to find a source of LCD panels that are blurry. Would you care to tel
Re:It ain't for the cuteness (Score:2)
This isn't hard to do. Low end LCD manufacturers are buying the LCD's that fail the quality assurance of the big name manufacturers. They get them for dirt cheap because of issues with dead pixels, focus problems, or glare coating unevenness. There is a market for these screens (be it a bundle or bulk purchase) where the cost is the driving factor rather than quality of the display.
No particular reason to believe LCDs are healthier (Score:2)
Those that think they do attribute the risk to the low-frequency magnetic fields created by the deflection yokes. The risk was considered serious enough for European countries to regulate magnetic field strength, and almost all modern CRTs are built to meet these European standards and contain shielding. (Similarly, the glass CRT envelope contains enough lead to shield against X-rays, which once were a concern in home television set
Dunno about the eyes, but my back... (Score:2)
The eye strain factor seems about the same for me. Your mileage may vary. I *like* my LCD better; it seems crisper, but the CRT is getting long in the tooth.
CRTs used to give me headaches - LCDs don't. (Score:2)
be careful with LCD on laptops too (Score:2)
Re:be careful with LCD on laptops too (Score:2)
no (Score:4, Informative)
About the 60 Hz and 10-100 KHz sweep and the dot clock and all of that -- professional fear mongers bring this stuff up all the time, but there is neither any plausible mechanism nor any experimental evidence of any danger from this stuff. In particular, for a photon to carry enough energy to damage DNA it needs to be at least in the shorter UV -- this is the mechanism by which UV, x-rays, and gamma rays cause cancer.
LCD monitors are space savers... (Score:2)
The local community college admissions and records office are using 15" LCD monitors with a compact micro-ATX case for data entry to replace the clunky CRT with build-in keyboard. Unfortunately, the backend is a mainframe computer that communicates over serial lines. The processing time is still slow today as it was 15 years ago when I was getting my General Ed degree. Go figure.
What I found (Score:2)
However I also read a swedish study that concluded spending a long time in front of CRT's (especially big ones) may cause problems if you have metal dental work such as amalgam fillings, due to them inducting a slight current from the CRT's EMF field.
I've spent about 25 years of working in front of CRTs with no noticeable problem so far, exce
Don't worry (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't worry, you'll probably die of a heart attack long before the leukemia kills you.
The risk is worth the reward (Score:5, Funny)
That's one reason government agencies switched, but there are other factors. As is well-known from such classic scientific research milestones as the G-bomb, the first private venture into space using insufficient spacecraft shielding, or poisoning by spiders exposed to ionizing radiation, the kind of hazardous rays that CRTs emit (especially from the back) have been known to induce superpowers in humans. Since the extent and strength of these powers are not predictable, the government is doing everything it can to avoid having them bestowed on listless, apathetic bureaucrats.
Bill Gates acquired superpowers years ago, of course, so he got rid of his CRT because he no longer needed the radiation. His power? He attracts money. The whole Microsoft thing is just a front to keep his power from public view so he can just exercise it over the normal course of the day. (And a good thing too. Can you imagine him in spandex?)
For true powers-seeking geeks, of course, the best course of action is to surround yourself with as many CRTs as possible. Gaming and graphic hardware companies know this, and since geeks are their main customer base both industries have been working toward their empowerment for quite some time now. This is the real reason for nVidia's TwinView technology, for example, and also the real reason why games are not developed for Linux necessitating a Windows box sitting next to the useful one. (After all, the more boxes you have in your house, the more CRTs you have pumping out those healthful X-rays.) It's no coincidence that most games involve the exercise of some kind of superhuman ability: they're trainers.
Sure, there's a serious risk of contracting some kind of cancer here, but considering the potential gains a cost/benefit analysis clearly favors bathing yourself in that wonderful blue glow.
CRT = 100% DEATH! (Score:3, Funny)
I have been using CRTs very heavily in the 80's and have noticed that my vision deteriorated extensively in less than a year of serious usage (8+ hours a day) so I believe there may be a strong correlation there. Also, I'm sure that all the x-ray radiation emitted by the CRTs over your lifetime will potentially have a negative effect on your body so don't be surprised if you end up with some weird tumor or mysteriously die! I can't even think of a single positive thing (health wise) about CRTs, if you can, I definitely would love to hear about it! The real question now is, ARE LCDs safe? Given how sensitive I am I think not since I have yet to encounter any negative symptoms from heavy LCD usage.
Time to call an attorney and start a class action suite to sue those damn CRTs companies for causing my vision loss and the thousands I've spent on glasses and contacts over the years. I know I'm not the only one here!
Re:More than just extra space. (Score:4, Insightful)
And you see the image on the monitor how?
Re:More than just extra space. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:More than just extra space. (Score:2)
Re:first post? (Score:2)
Who knows... Is this an actual real first post? I don't think so...
Re:Everything causes cancer (Score:5, Insightful)