Options to read articles or books from your cell phone without affecting your eyesight

Using a smartphone for reading may not be the most comfortable thing due to the size of the device. However, it is very practical, because people always carry it in their pocket and can use it at any time to start or continue reading. And it doesn't matter if it's a book, a web article or any other text element.

With tablets, users may find themselves more comfortable having larger screens for better reading, but as with mobile phones, there is a problem: the screen light can be harmful to the eyes.

Therefore, Infobae brings some tips to make reading much more comfortable for all readers, both during and after, avoiding eyestrain.

The first option is undoubtedly to use the audiobook options

This option is one of the best to avoid eye fatigue when reading. Text-to-speech applications such as AlReader on Android and Speak4me on iOS/iPadOS can be a solution.

Both are free and will allow you to convert a complete book, an extract from it or a web article into a speech in a very intuitive way.

However, this option is also available with Google Assistant and Siri, for Android and iPhone/iPad respectively. To do this, it is important to configure it first:

- On Android: go to Settings, enter Accessibility and turn on Select to Talk. Other options can be found by entering the 'Text to Speech' option.

- On iOS/iPadOS: Go to Settings and go to Accessibility > Read Content. Then you have to enable the Read Selection option, in addition to being able to configure other parameters such as speed.

Once these options have been enabled, you have to select the text and the option will appear for Google or Siri to read the text to you.

Choose the right application to use

If you are going to read an article on the web, you will have no choice but to choose a mobile browser for it. However, if you are going to read a book or PDF document (some books are already in PDF format), it is better to choose a good application to do so.

It is known that there are many applications for reading PDFs, with interesting bookmark functions and other options.

However, there are specialized applications to which books can be imported that provide functions that bring the user experience closer to that of an e-book. Some of those recommended by Infobae are:

- Wattpad

- Google Play Libros

Before reading from a mobile phone, check the screen settings

For iPhones and iPads, Apple has been integrating the famous Night Shift and True Tone settings for several years, which are available in Settings > Display and Brightness and allow warmer screen temperatures, as well as readjusting colors only depending on the available light conditions.

For comfortable reading, it can be very useful to enable them.

For Android phones and tablets, with the number of models and their different screens, you may not always find the same configuration.

However, by going into the Screen Settings you will be able to see that everything is available and you will surely find a setting similar to that of Apple.

The final question: use dark mode or light mode to read

As a result, there is a mode that almost all mobile phones already have: dark mode.

In case there are still any users who have no idea what it is about, it is a simple change in the system interface that allows us to obtain a dark color, with black as the protagonist.

In the past, it used to be believed that using dark mode could be less harmful to the eyes, because in the end we didn't reduce the impact of white light on the eyes. However, this is not always the case.

There are studies that consider dark mode as a “negative polarity”, which discourages its use when the letters are too small. Obviously, if you set the average and legible font size, you shouldn't have any problems.

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