way. The proper lighting level for paperwork is much higher than for
computer work. And yet most computer operators have yet to see the
much-touted paperless office. How do you keep eyes comfortable with both
paper and computer screens?
Here are some _possible_ solutions to the lighting problem:
1. Removing half the tubes from existing fluorescent fixtures. You’ll
want, however, to make certain that some areas of the room aren’t
still overlit while others are light starved. Be skeptical. This is
the miser’s solution. If you can get away with it, fine. But don’t
count on it. Remember, the women at the insurance company in New York
say they still suffered glare afterward.
2. Parabolic fluorescent fixtures with baffles to keep the light out of
the places where it can cause glare.
3. Parawedge louvers, which, according to Eisen, “have been particularly
effective on a number of newspapers.” Small plastic cells turn light
downward, so that, ideally, you can barely notice it at desks just a
few feet from the one you’re illuminating. “Light should be cut off,”
Eisen suggests, “outside a line emanating at a forty-five-degree angle
from the fixture.”
4. Desk and floor lamps. You might buy rheostats you can plug in between
them and the outlet to adjust the light level. And be careful
otherwise. Shield your lamps so they don’t glare off nearby computer
screens. Properly used, however, they could be a godsend for people
doing both computer work and paperwork.
5. Indirect lighting. The disadvantage is the expense. You may have to
repaint walls and ceilings and pay for a consultant to select the
right tones. Moreover, indirect lighting may be hard to install in
rooms with ceilings lower than nine feet. Used well, however, this is
one of the best solutions.
As a general rule, think about a lighting level between 300 and 500
=lux=—between 32 and 53 =footcandles=. A lux tells how much light is
hitting a certain area, and 9.5 lux would equal 1 footcandle. For rough
measurements you might borrow a good lightmeter from a photographer.
Don’t aim directly at the light. Sample, instead, desk and computer
surfaces, among others, though not the screens themselves. For more
detailed measurements and advice, hire a consultant or call your state
labor department. Make certain you‘re in touch with the consulting
rather than the enforcement branch. Yes, any contact with officialdom
has its risks. But they’re low here. And you’re strengthening your hand
in labor relations by documenting your concern for your workers’ eyes.
In fact, before you place your order for lighting, ask if your supplier
can run a test in your office. Or can you at least visit offices using
the product?
Also, all along, worry about glare as well as lighting levels. You might
try the mirror test suggested by a veteran ergonomics expert. Place a
mirror over the face of a computer screen. Then you can see where the
glare is coming from—which window, which lamp; for all you know, the
source could be a brightly colored painting or a glassed-in print.
Try to rid your office of glare instead of using a filter. “I believe in
avoiding a broken arm rather than putting a splint on it afterward,”
says Harry Snyder. If you need a filter, however, here are
possibilities:
1. Coatings or etching applied during manufacture of the video displays.
They needn’t harm the viewing quality noticeably.
2. Coatings put on after manufacture. Generally, but not always, they
don’t work out.
3. “Colored plastic panels and etched faceplates,” which, says Eisen,
“have such damaging effect on brightness and clarity of the characters
that they should be avoided.”
4. Micromesh filters, favored by German ergonomists. Eisen says U.S.
opinion of them “is mixed. They do a good job of reducing reflections,
but the mesh makes for a restricted viewing angle, absorbs some of the
light from the display, and scatters some of the rest, degrading the
image.”
5. Polarizing filters. They may reduce brightness and shorten tube life,
since you must crank up the tube to compensate; at $100 or more, they
are more expensive than the other add-ons. But they give you a better
image than other filters. The contrast especially can be impressive.
Noise Reduction
Don’t just buy the fastest, the cheapest, printer. Look for one with
good manners toward the humans nearby—a _quiet_ printer.
A daisy wheel can be a real offender. What more can you expect of a
machine with a metal hammer constantly striking away? And dot-matrix
printers often make a higher-pitched sound that mercilessly cuts through
walls.
So ask your printer supplier for noise figures if you think this will be
a problem. Military standards say that for work needing heavy
concentration—in areas like libraries and conference rooms—the sound
level must be no more than 45 decibels on the dB(A) scale, which allows
for sensitivity of the ear at various sound pitches. Otherwise, aim for
a level less than 65 decibels. You may be able to rent the necessary
meter from a scientific instrument store. Measure the sound from the
distance someone’s head would be when he was working. Here again, you
might ask the supplier for a look-see at an existing installation.
Put your printers if necessary inside padded wooden boxes; carpet; drape
walls; install sound-muffling panels on ceilings and walls, perhaps.
The less echoey and factorylike your office is, the more productive it
will be.
Air Conditioning, Heat, And Ventilation
Around the first week of January 1983, when _Time_ honored the computer
as the “Machine of the Year,” a Commerce Department computer
ungratefully stopped working and delayed the release of an important
government report.
The reported cause was nothing more than a dehumidifier motor out of
whack; perhaps the room got too moist for the computer sensor.
If so, I wasn’t surprised. Computers and related machinery can sometimes
be quirky about their surroundings. My old Anderson Jacobson daisywheel
printer, later sold, wouldn’t run unless the room temperature was above
fifty degrees. Since I was comfortable at seventy degrees, I obliged the
AJ.
In our attentiveness to machinery, however, let’s not forget the people
nearby.
“You can see the heat wafting out the backs of our VDTs,” said a woman
with the northeastern insurance office—and yet the firm didn’t turn up
the air conditioning. “What might happen,” said Waters about a hot
insurance office, “is the [overheated computers] may go down and they’ll
pay out extra money, anyway.”
Look inside a VDT and you’ll very likely find an orange glow in the neck
of the tube. The heat there may be no more than a light bulb’s, but on a
hot day, with more than one machine in the same room, you’ll want your
air conditioning to be up to the job.
At the same time, having a room too cool—even in just a few places—can
harm productivity. An employee in the insurance office said her
coworkers, when not using the terminals, sometimes wore gloves.
As for bad ventilation, it, too, can jinx production and add to sick
leave, and in recent years, especially, it’s been a problem, as
companies tightened up their buildings to save energy. People in
high-paced jobs or those requiring concentration may suffer the most.
Healthy Honesty
When Laura Moore was pregnant, she neither smoked nor drank—not even
coffee.
She did, however, operate a computer terminal for a telephone company in
Renton, Washington, near Seattle, and she was one of three VDT operators
there with problem pregnancies within a year and one-half.[44]
Footnote 44:
The facts of the Renton, Washington case come from Laurie Garrett’s
National Public Radio interview with Laura Moore, which aired August
12, 1982.
Laura Moore, after nineteen hours of labor, gave birth to a son with a
birth defect called spina bifida. “We didn’t see it at first,” she said.
“We saw a larger head and a foot that was a little odd and distorted.
But when the nurse picked him up, then we saw this huge opening in his
back, which is a spina bifida.” Laura was “devastated. Just devastated.
We—I went through a severe depression afterward.”
Moore is just one of many people worried about VDTs. In Massachusetts a
pregnant journalist, fearing radiation, wore a leaded apron. (A leaded
apron’s weight on the mother might itself harm an unborn child.) At the
_New York Times_ two young editors developed cataracts and filed for
workers compensation, blaming their computer screens.
“We’ve heard of cases of everything from bad dreams of computers chasing
people to psychic distress where people have attacks of depression,”
says Michael Smith, the ex-NIOSH man. “But it can’t be linked
specifically to the VDT.” And yet NIOSH as of this writing was
continuing safety studies. “We might find that it has nothing to do with
the video tubes,” Smith says of problem pregnancies among terminal
operators. “It could be part of the circuitry.... It may be from job
stress.” Meanwhile, proven problems—like eyestrain—bedevil men and women
on the tube. When 1,236 secretaries and word processing-operators
replied to a survey done for a major disk-maker, almost 70 percent
worried about potential health complication. Some 63 percent told of
eyestrain, and 36 percent reported backaches. Almost 80 percent wanted
better lighting and more time to rest their eyes.
So, regardless of how your equipment supplier vouches for your
computers’ safety, keep two facts in mind:
1. There is a possibility, extra-slim, but still there, that
low-frequency radiation from computers can seriously threaten the
health of workers like Laura Moore and their unborn children.
2. More minor physical and mental problems from computers definitely do
exist. You and your people, however, can either overcome them or at
least live with them. Don’t shrug the problems off. If you do, you’ll
only ruin your credibility when you and your employees discuss
radiation and other possible hazards.
Most people, however, accept the inevitability of computerization.
Employees usually know you need your machines to keep up with your
competitors. So do unions. They have computers of their own. The major
labor-management issues aren’t over whether to computerize: they’re over
how to be safe and humane about it.
And often, by agreeing to requests like those for eye examinations,
you’ll be helping your company along with the workers.
Here is a summary of expert thinking about actual and possible health
threats of computers:
RADIATION
Could low-frequency radiation from VDTs indeed endanger the unborn? Or
might it cause cataracts? And what about x-rays?
A computer user sits much closer to the screen than most TV-watchers do;
might this increase the danger? After all, a typical computer, like a
TV, uses a cathode ray tube with a high-voltage charge. An electron gun
fires these subatomic particles toward the phosphor coating on your
screen. Toward you, in other words. Wouldn’t x-rays created by this
process be dangerous?
Well, throw away your $50 lead-impregnated acrylic shield! Experts feel
that x-ray are a nonissue here.
The x-rays aren’t strong enough; besides, there’s too much leaded glass
in the computer screen itself for you to suffer harm. I’d worry more
about the chemicals in my typewriter cleaning fluid than about x-rays
from my green screen.
Then again, some respected scientists _wonder_ about low-frequency
radiation given off by computer monitors. Until researchers can absolve
computers of blame in cases like Laura Moore’s, the VDT safety issue
will remain legitimate.
“The wild cards in the VDT debate are the eleven clusters of problem
pregnancies and miscarriages among women who work on or nearby VDTs,”
says Louis Slesin, editor of _Microwave News_ and publisher of the
sister publication _VDT News_.[45] Some computer industry spokesmen and
federal officials think the clusters show up by chance. Slesin, however,
while noting that the “normal” miscarriage rate in the U.S. is almost 20
percent, says: “The incidence of birth defects is harder to account
for.” And he says similar clusters haven’t popped up among women tapping
away on typewriters.
Footnote 45:
The Slesin quotes come from his article in _Columbia Journalism
Review_, November 1984. The _Review_ correctly says Slesin’s
newsletter “has taken no sides in the VDT story while keeping up with
all relevant developments.” It appears monthly. The _Microwave News_’s
address is P.O. Box 1799, Grand Central Station, New York, N.Y. 10163.
Subscriptions are $200 a year. _VDT News_, a bimonthly, costs $42 a
year.
These clusters—found in widely scattered offices in the U.S. and
Canada—may result from causes other than radiation. Some VDT operators
feel less in control of their jobs than do traditional typists; and a
remote possibility exists that this additional stress could take its
toll on the unborn children. Slesin says fear of VDTs may itself
increase the stress—a Catch-22 if ever one existed.
Seeking a definitive answer on the birth-defect and miscarriage
questions, NIOSH in 1984 was planning a study of about 5,000 pregnancies
in a two-year period. Perhaps one-half of the women would use terminals.
And the study would tell if they had more miscarriages and children with
birth defects than did the other mothers. It would not pinpoint the
cause, however—justification for further study.
A possible culprit here is =very low frequency= (=VLF=) =radiation= from
the flyback transformer.
The transformer whips the cathode ray tube’s electron beams from one
side to the other of the phosphor-coated screen, then back again.
Typically a flyback transformer gives off radiation pulses at the rate
of about 16,000 cycles a second, far below the AM radio broadcast
band—hence, the term VLF. Could pulses at this frequency have biological
effects?
We don’t know about VLF. But a Spanish scientist named Jose Delgado says
even very weak pulses of =extremely low-frequency radiation= (=ELF=),
the term for below 300 cycles a second, have damaged chick embryos. Some
authorities question the “Delgado effect”; still, scientists in both the
U.S. and Europe are undertaking similar experiments. Trying to gauge the
possible risks from ELF, researchers may face certain technical
complexities. Some scientists talk about “windows” of power and
frequency. Just a slightly lower or higher frequency, for instance,
might mean the difference between safety and danger for expectant
mothers.
Like it or not, the jury is still out on the low frequency issue, and
some companies may want to protect themselves legally—just in case—by
transferring pregnant women from VDTs. Ideally you’d coordinate this
policy with those regarding maternity leaves and other health benefits;
then a woman would feel free to tell you immediately about her pregnancy
instead of disguising it for as long as possible.
Even if radio frequency radiation is a culprit, there is some hope.
Slesin notes that the flyback transformer is on the side or back of a
computer monitor rather than in the front near the operator. That isn’t
the best news for someone sitting near the flyback transformer of a
coworker’s machine, but perhaps the VLF threat isn’t so great to someone
without any other VDTs nearby. “With the right office layout,” says Mark
Pinsky, editor of _VDT News_, “you might be able to greatly reduce
exposure to VLFs fields. And obviously the risk to home computer users
might be less without another machine around.”
Although VDTs have yet to be proven free of radiation risks, please note
that groups like 9 to 5 and the Newspaper Guild have been using at least
a few computers in their offices for several years. Don’t lie to your
people that there’s nothing to worry about; do point out that the risks
are low enough to justify computerization’s benefits.
“Can computer screens cause cataracts?” some employees might also ask.
Probably not. A NIOSH study at the Baltimore _Sun_ found no greater
number of cataracts among VDT users than nonusers (although the
researchers noted that the employees on VDTs averaged less than four
years at the tube—perhaps not long enough to suffer the cataracts).
To be sure, strong microwave radiation indeed can lead to cataracts. But
VDTs don’t give off microwaves, and no one has suggested that ELF and
VLF are responsible for cataracts. Maybe there are other causes.
Regardless, a certain percentage of people, some in their 30s or even
late 20s, will always develop cataracts—whether or not they work in
front of a tube.
BACK AND MUSCULAR PROBLEMS
They _are_ common—because, as mentioned earlier, some terminals force
you to choose between the best hand-keyboard distance and the optimal
eye-screen one.
_And for the most part, the pains are avoidable._
Etienne Grandjean tells of a study in which 11 percent of fifty-three
people on data-entry terminals suffered neck problems; 15 percent,
shoulder troubles; 15 percent, problems in their right arms; and 6
percent, problems in their right hands. The study also included
fifty-five people in traditional office work. No more than 1 percent
suffered neck, shoulder, or right arm pains, and none had problems with
the right hand. Olov Ostberg and Ewa Gunnarsson, two other European
ergonomics experts, likewise documented the frequent muscular pains from
computer-related jobs. They found that almost two-thirds of some fairly
young clerks with a Scandinavian airline reported such problems. In the
United States, NIOSH, in its 1981 report, also said terminal users
endured more muscular and skeletal pain.
The outrage is that it’s unnecessary, almost always, now that ergonomic
furniture and detachable keyboards are on the market.
Don’t blame your people for their pain. Buy truly ergonomic products.
And don’t just buy for male executives or female typists, especially in
this age when more women are working.
PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPLAINTS
NIOSH’s 1981 report observed that VDT operators showed dramatically more
anxiety and depression than people not on the tubes. The researchers
qualified their finding, however. They noted that many terminal
operators were in jobs more routine than those of the non-VDT people,
increasing psychological problems.
Could the machines themselves, however, have made some work more
routine?
For me computers mean less typing and more writing. For a data-entry
clerk, however, they may mean becoming part of what Grandjean calls “a
man-machine-system.” Not all workers object. Some, as Grandjean says,
“are proud to be included in the new work of modern technology.” But
most people would still favor the human touch, with or without a
computer. “The computer,” it’s been said, “is the ultimate unsupportive
boss.” A Cleveland office worker observed that another woman was “fast
as the wind” on a computer keyboard after ten years at it. “But,” said
the worker, “it’s really affected her personality. I used to wonder if
something was wrong—she had no exuberance. Once she said to me, ‘Rose,
as soon as I sit down at that machine in the morning, I feel I’m going
to cry.’”[46]
Footnote 46:
The quote from the Cleveland office worker and from the two examples
immediately after it come from _Warning: Health Hazards for Office
Workers_, published in 1981 by the Working Women Education Fund, 1224
Huron Rd., Cleveland, Ohio 44115.
“You know,” said a worker at an accounting firm, “when the boss brings
new clients through the office to show them around, he’ll point right to
me working at the word processor and say, ‘Here we have our wonderful
new LEXITRON,’ and then move right on. He doesn’t bother to introduce
me—just the machine!” Mightn’t he also have bragged about the operator?
Can you dismiss her as a whiner? Is it any surprise that on most days
the woman and two colleagues suffered headaches, shaky hands, jittery
stomachs? “The place looks gorgeous,” said a worker, “and that’s where
the management’s priorities lie. They’re not really as interested in
efficiency as they are in using people up and pushing them out the back
door.”
According to Grandjean, psychological reactions to computers will differ
depending on:
▪ The type of work.
▪ The way the job is organized.
▪ The way it is introduced.
▪ Various personal attitudes.
To his list I would add “Surroundings.” A newspaper installed dark blue
panels, six feet high, around some VDT operators. The dark blue may have
cut down the glare, but at a cost. “All we see is the walls around us,”
lamented one, “and sometimes the supervisor. The isolation is terrible.”
Some employees might welcome isolation at times, especially a chance to
work at home; but here management seems to have unwittingly created
high-tech solitary cells.
EYESTRAIN
“I wore glasses before I came in,” said a claims processor with the
northeastern insurance office mentioned earlier, “and now I need a
stronger prescription. And I can’t even read a book anymore. Before I
used to enjoy reading,” she told me, “but now I can barely glance at
newspapers.”
Many computer-ergonomics experts would scoff at the idea that the
woman’s work is blinding her. No one has convincingly shown that the
terminals cause a permanent deterioration in eyesight. There is,
however, some uncertainty. “We don’t know,” said my ophthalmologist when
I asked during an eye examination about long-term effects—and also when
he prescribed new glasses.
Most ergonomics experts would be more reassuring. They would say, for
instance, that, first, people’s eyes weaken naturally as they age, and
you can’t automatically blame the terminals. Second, terminals place
more demands on your eyes than reading does. VDTs, however, don’t
permanently harm eyes, according to a twelve-member panel of the
prestigious National Research Council (NRC) which is connected with the
National Academies of Science and Engineering. The NRC study, released
in 1983, said no evidence existed that VDTs could cause “anatomical or
physiological damage ... to the visual system.” The panel felt that the
VDT controversy should be a productivity issue rather than a health one.
At the very least, however, it’s a comfort one. Harry Snyder, the
Virginia Polytechnic Institute expert, in 1983 said that three-fifths of
VDTs then on sale were not even reasonably comfortable. Just consider,
if nothing else, the resultant productivity losses!
Even if the computer isn’t permanently blinding the northeastern claims
processor, it’s in a sense shortening her life. She has less time for
the reading she loves. Presumably, she would agree with the findings of
a NIOSH-sponsored study of San Francisco clerical workers. Ninety-one
percent of the ones on terminals reportedly complained of eyestrain,
while only 60 percent of the nonterminal users did.
How to reply to such complaints? Follow the lighting and glare
suggestions outlined earlier and consider rest breaks or alternating VDT
and non-VDT tasks. And educate your workers—ideally before you hire
them.
Let them know you’re doing all you can to reduce the risks. “I have a
selfish interest in this, too, you know,” you can tell them once they’re
working for you. “The lousier your eyes get, the more errors you’ll
make. Which hurts _me_.”
Then hand them cards with a good ophthalmologist’s name on it—or perhaps
several possibilities—and say: “Make an appointment. We’ll pay for it.”
Why should a company invest thousands or millions of dollars in computer
maintenance without worrying about other work tools—employees’ eyes?
Have new employees’ eyes checked in these NIOSH-approved ways, among
others, during thorough examinations:
1. Refraction
2. Accommodation
3. Acuity
4. Color vision function
5. Degree of opacity of the lens
6. The possibility of a detached retina
Yearly, the doctor should test for refraction, acuity, and
accommodation.
Make sure your health insurance covers bifocals and other glasses that
your employees wouldn’t need except for your CRT.
CRTs: Should They Go Down the Tube?