The Effects of Long Term VDT Usage on Task Performance

In response to a request from the US Patent and Trademark Office, a simple experiment was conducted to help evaluate the effects of long term exposure to video display terminals (VDTs) on worker performance. This test was conducted with 16 subjects, students at the University of Puerto Rico. The results indicate that performance on a short term memory recall experiment significantly deteriorates (alpha = .05) after slightly more than one hour of continuous viewing. Because of complaints of headaches and eye fatigue, the experiment was discontinued after this period of time.