How many hours do developers actually stare at a monitor every day?

Published: (December 15, 2025 at 03:31 AM EST)
1 min read
Source: Dev.to

Source: Dev.to

If you’re a developer, a lot of the time is spent bouncing between code editors, terminals, logs, PRs, documentation, meetings, and chat tools. Even when you’re not actively coding, your eyes are still on a screen.

When we’ve been talking with developers in different roles, one thing keeps coming up, often without people really noticing it at first:

A lot of developers spend well over 8 hours a day looking at a monitor.

What really stuck with us wasn’t the number itself, but how the fatigue shows up. More than a few people told us that by the end of the day, it’s not that they can’t think anymore; their eyes just give out first.

After hearing this so many times, we wanted to pause and ask:

How many hours a day do you feel like you’re actually looking at a monitor?

  • Less than 6 hours
  • 6–8 hours
  • 8–10 hours
  • More than 10 hours

When during the day do you usually start to feel it in your eyes?

(Feel free to share your experience in the comments.)

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