Presenteeism & Self-harming!?
Nigel Dupree
Project Director at S.M.A.R.T. Foundation - also known as: Legin Nyleve, LeginNyleve and @l3gin on other Social Media
The expediency of omission to actually comply with Equality Legislation or Occupational Health Regulations has reached a tipping-point in the Health and Safety of the majority of workers in the 21st Digital Century.
Whether from ignoring the ergonomics of what it "said on the tin" of the 1993 UK DSE Regulations yet, actually omitting the Display Screen itself "operator-interface" or excluding DSE from the 1998 PUWER Act, the 2010 Equality Act "Reasonable Adjustments or Accommodations", 2018 ISO 45001 "Work Exposure Limits", WCAG 2.1 "Colour Contrast Validation" solely for Websites again ignoring the primary interface to anything on the IOT the Display Screen, never mind 2021 ISO 45003 Mental Health or ISO 31405 Human Resource Management, Diversity and Inclusion.
Of course, in the 21st Digital Century so many had or have now already signed a waiver to the "Working Hours Directive" along with accepting that little final clause "and anything else required" so, little wonder we have seen an exponential rise in loss of any sense of Wellbeing resulting from Workplace and Work/life Stressors in the last couple or more decades leading to presenteeism & something like "Social Anomie"
It has been muted that there aught to be a "Right to Disconnect" but, that would throw the Cat amongst the Pigeons who have all signed a waiver regardless of their occupational health and level of presenteeism.
So, will be interesting to see whether occupational health, from an holistic and human ergonomics perspective will acknowledge the old fashioned "Time and Motion" studies and findings that humans will cope and/or tolerate intensive activity for up to '90' before performance significantly declines that resulting in the '15' tea break morning and afternoon with an hour for lunch to recover prior to returning to intensive activity in the afternoon breaking-up what used to be the '9' to '5' shift pattern allowing for a reasonable work/life balance.
That meant everyone had "exclusively some home-time effectively leaving work behind", space for socialising, hobbies, family, DIY in the shed at bottom of garden and for many in retail there was also the half-day off mid-week or half-day Saturday with Sunday off for all.
Now everyone suffers from some degree of separation anxiety or even addiction to their smart screen that is being passed-on to their children as so many risking their child's visual, emotional and cognitive development by making their sub-optimally colour contrast calibrated screen as a replacement pacifier exacerbating the risk of early visual development of motor skills for spatial awareness disrupting binocular vision presenting in myopic and asthenopic disease already suffered by grown-ups carrying-on regardless of self-harming and increasingly children leaving education as "functionally and digitally illiterate" as they arrived.
2007
2016
It's looking like we are following the Asian triangle and USA sustaining a population of "Haves and Have-Nots" differentiated by literacy !?
BTW - FYI the scale of Functional illiteracy defined by anyone's reading rate below a minimum of "185 words per minute".
Free Vision Risk Self-Assessment for Accessibility - "Score My Screen"
www.screenfatigue.me.uk