Some gadgets can be tough on aging eyes

I had to buy a new pair of glasses last week. I would have preferred a new cell phone, but I can't find one I can read without glasses. Here's the problem: Like most people my age (57), my close-up vision began deteriorating at about the age of 40, at which point I started with a mild, one diopter, over-the-counter pair of reading glasses for books and newspapers - you remember newspapers, right? Computers were no problem - I just used a bigger screen and blew up the type. In fact, I can still get by without glasses if I write in 18-point Times Roman on a 15-inch laptop monitor. But that doesn't work for everything. The computer and Internet crowd are constantly trying to fit more stuff in less screen space. As Web design has evolved, we've seen more and more pages that don't follow the old conventions that allow you to click on view/ text size/largest and get big type. Some Web pages send you off to special style sheets instead; some don't display properly. And the current crop of slim LCD monitors, unlike clunky old CRT displays, must be set to their highest resolution for maximum clarity.

So this situation is all evolving at about the time I made a laptop my main production machine. That was when I got an e-mail from a longtime reader, Paul Glaser at Captree Opticians in Babylon (babylonvillage.com/captree.htm). Paul does a big business on the Internet selling exotic eyeware - prescription shooting glasses, diving masks, that sort of stuff. He had read one of my rants about non-standard Web pages, and offered to set me up with a pair of computer glasses.

So what are computer glasses? When you're reading a book, you're focusing at 12 to 15 inches. Your computer screen, on the other hand, is 20 to 26 inches away, what's known as the intermediate zone of vision. You can't use the same lens for those two distances. Assuming your distance vision is OK, you could buy a second pair of glasses for working on the computer. Or you could get bifocals, Lord forbid, that have a bottom lens for reading books, and a top lens for reading the Internet. You take the glasses off when you're up and about or driving. Until computers came along, this intermediate zone wasn't worth bothering with for a lot of people. How many occupations require crystal-clear vision at 24 inches for eight hours a day?

Computer glasses are one of the best-kept secrets of modern technology - I've seen way too many guys wearing drugstore glasses who are scrunched over a pricey state-of-the-art laptop. Bad allocation of resources. You should buy a pair.

Now the best computer glasses are "progressive" lenses, a relatively recent development. These are usually pitched as a vanity item, "no lines" bifocals, but the cool thing is that they can be made to focus at any distance from 12 inches to arm's length with a slight tilt of the head.

This is particularly nice for long computer sessions, since you can rock back and forth and alter your posture, which helps ward off repetitive stress injuries and lower back problems. You can't drive with them on, but they have a big fat vertical field of view out to about 6 feet. For a longer rundown on computer glasses see allaboutvision.com/ cvs/computer_glasses.htm

I love my progressive lenses. They're pricey compared to over-the-counter reading glasses or even fixed-focus prescription glasses, but I can wear them all day when I'm writing and wandering around the house, then put 'em in my pocket when I head out for the afternoon.

Or at least I used to be able to do that. This is where the cell phone comes in. For many years, I needed no optical help whatsoever in that department because I had a wonderful old Motorola T720. The T720 was primitive by today's standards - it had a tiny screen, no Web, no YouTube, no music downloads - but it did have one feature that's absent in today's cell phones: You could enlarge the type. I didn't need glasses to operate it. I wouldn't want to spend eight hours a day trying to read the darn thing, but for looking up a name on my phone list, it was fine. Life was good. Computer glasses at home, big type on the cell phone, naked eyes on the road.

Well, the T720 died a couple of years ago, and the only place you can buy one today is in Russia. Silly me, I got the newer model, the v710, only to discover Motorola had killed off the large-type feature in favor of a bigger screen for Web browsing, TV, music, etc. I assume that by the time they added all the cool stuff, they didn't have enough memory for more sophisticated type management for the 40-plus set.

The 710's display was a couple of points smaller than the 720's, but I could read it. Time marched on, and eventually I couldn't read it at all and was taking out my glasses constantly. I spend inordinate amounts of time juggling glasses, eyeglass cases, phone, shopping lists, keys, wallet, credit cards, etc., every time I have to make a call in public. When the 710 started acting up, I started shopping for a new phone. Imagine my horror when I discovered that the state of the art for cell phone type is now a couple of points smaller than the 710's. Absent glasses, the Motorola Razr, for example, is unusable.

In the course of surfing the Net for a large-type phone, I discovered I'm not the only one who's upset at the incredible shrinking cell phone type face. Back in August, in one of the least reported events of the year, the American Foundation for the Blind filed a formal complaint (afb.org/Section .asp?DocumentID=3596) with the Federal Communications Commission against cell phone carriers and manufacturers, citing, among other things that "the visual displays on most phones are hard to read." They called this "a failure of the market," an understatement to say the least. There are, after all, something like 100 million people (a growing number thanks to aging baby boomers) who wear reading glasses, and who, like me, probably are going nuts because they have to whip them out every time they make a phone call.

The industry isn't ignoring the problem, but it's looking at a high-tech solution, voice activation and feedback, e.g., you'll talk to your phone, and it will talk to you. There's an obvious solution - build a big honking phone, about the size of an iPhone, with big honking keys and type. Call it the Gezr if you want. Alas, that does not seem to be in the offing, probably because a) it would be expensive, and b) the folks who would buy such a device have enough sense not to waste their money subscribing to the overpriced music and video services that cell phone companies are pitching to the kids, most of whom are interested in Zoolander-size phones.

As for me, well, Paul set me up with a new pair of glasses. Progressives like my old ones, but I can wear them all the time because the upper half of the frame is set for distance, hence no fumbling outside the house. The lower half, because it has such a narrow vertical field of view, is less than great for computer work, but at least I can read the cell phone near-field in public if I roll my eyeballs way down. I still wear my old progressives at home. So thanks to technology, I have to own and maintain two pairs of sophisticated glasses, where I probably could have gotten by with a cheap pair of reading specs in the pre-computer era. Talk about progress.

Source: newsday.com