Digital Eye Strain and Dry Eye: It's the Blinking, Not the Blue Light

Summary

Digital eye strain and screen-related dry eye are **real and common, but blue light is the wrong culprit** — the discomfort comes from a blink rate that collapses during screen use (incomplete blinks roughly double, destabilising your tear film) plus sustained near-focus fatigue, not from phototoxicity; blue-light-blocking glasses do **not** reduce eye strain (Cochrane, 2023, 17 trials) and screens do **not** damage the retina at normal exposure (American Academy of Ophthalmology), so the genuine fixes are **free behaviours** (blink deliberately, break your focus on the 20-20-20 cadence, repos