
Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One (2014) - bootload
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/technology/personaltech/surviving-and-thriving-in-a-one-monitor-world.html?_r=0
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wrayjustin
People can waste just as much time with less screen real estate. If you're not
working when you have two monitors, having one isn't going to change that.

I have a multiple monitor setup on every system I use, and I find it essential
for much of my work.

If you're not using your second display properly, that's on you, not the
second monitor.

~~~
z1mm32m4n
I also think that having a tiling window manager helps at making sure that
you're filling up all the available space with things that make you more
productive. It makes it harder for the time sinks to seep into view.

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foz
I used two 24"-27" monitors for several years to do web development, but then
I stopped. There was a definitely advantage to having an entire web page
visible while I was working on CSS. It was also great to compare full code
windows side-by-side (like when refactoring).

The problem for me was neck and shoulder strain. Constantly turning to the
left or right always gave me problems. My posture degraded as I naturally
moved farther back from the keyboard to take things in.

I dropped the second monitor a few years ago. My physical problems have gone
away. I enjoy looking straight ahead now, and as others have mentioned, using
a laptop on the train to code no longer feels limiting.

~~~
Yizahi
So you say that second monitor caused neck and shoulder strain and then you
say that you use laptop for coding? I notice some mutually exclusive points
here.

I worked about a year on a laptop and also used laptop at home a little. It
was a horrifying experience, neck and back strain was really big because of
terrible posture behind a laptop - low placed screen, too close screen to
keyboard and yourself, narrow and unergonomic keyboard, small screen estate.

~~~
foz
For me the constant side-to-side, combined with mouse usage was the problem.
Trying to re-orient my field of vision (I wear glasses with a strong
prescription as well). Looking down or straight ahead has never caused me
problems.

I should also point out that on the train, I have a table where I sit (not in
my lap, that sucks). I also try to use a stand-up desk more for all-day laptop
usage.

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blencdr
I can't work properly without a second screen when it comes to web
development.

By the way I have some of my colleagues that use the second screen to display
their gmail inbox, that's a great loss in productivity...

~~~
nattaggart
True that. Web development from my laptop seems like a total chore compared to
my 2 monitor rig at work.

What's interesting to me is that someone who uses a work computer mainly for
word processing (like the author) would think he could be more productive on
two screens in the first place. Did other professions imitate web developers
by using more than one monitor?

~~~
bartl
You have to make a distinction between someone who's writing a research paper,
and therefore constantly checking sources, and someone who's writing fiction.
For the latter, a single monitor is less distracting, but for the former, a
second monitor for the sources can be beneficial.

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makeitsuckless
Utter BS just to be contrarian. This says enough:

> "I have no research proving you’ll find as much benefit from a single
> monitor as I did."

But, the author does call upon a "professor", who then states:

> "But most people have their email up on the second screen"

Are you f-ing kidding me?

What we have here is the anecdotal evidence of one single journalist who's job
clearly doesn't require having multiple screens.

This is just cheap clickbait.

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malkia
Not two, but three screens if you can.

Most of the windows managers are optimized around maximizing a window on a
single display. So often you would have one screen maximized with one thing,
second with another, and even better third. Simple as that.

If you are a game level designer, or builder, scripter, modeler, etc. you need
one screen for the game, one for the edito, one for something else - it might
be docked out windows from your editor.

Even coding - debuger, terminal, browser, or log viewer, etc.

Then you have people having irregular screen orientations - one screen rotated
sideways - maybe for coding, or logs, the other one - for visualizing things.

I was firm unbeliever in more than one screen, until I was finally sold...

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Three is great for coding. Documentation, requirements, and planning on the
left. Terminal w/ vim in the middle. Results of what I'm working on in the
right (auto-running tests or auto-refreshing a web page).

------
ddingus
I find the more effective the window manager is, the less I find the need for
multiple displays.

Some tasks benefit from multiple displays. High end CAD / CAM / CAE very
clearly do, as one example. Graphics, video production, simulation,
visualization, are all potentials for similar reasons.

One thing I find extremely annoying in the Windows window manager is this idea
of click to focus to top in order to do just about anything. On IRIX, the 4DWM
window manager allowed a quick highlight, cut, paste, copy operation without
actually bringing the window forward. The same is true for text input. Options
like this are available in many *nix + X Window system window managers. They
rock hard.

Couple that with virtual desktops, and it was entirely possible to have a ton
of things going on, have them well organized, task switch with relative ease
and manipulate and move information in various ways, often across
applications, with a minimum of focus and context changes. There are times
when I would leave the IRIX box logged in for weeks at a time as several
complex tasks got worked through. Just pile 'em on virtual desktops and switch
as makes sense.

Windows 8 moved away from this and toward very rigid window management
schemes, and it's a significant loss when operated as intended. One can still
get to the desktop and carefully avoid the massive context changes associated
with metro and do OK.

But I have to ask, "why?"

I get it on tablets and phones. However, my Samsung Note 4 actually does a
window / icon display and I've often used it to have several things displayed
at once with the intent of using information from several different things at
once to get a task done not unlike how I would have done it on 4DWM. Spiffy,
if you ask me!

Doing this on an Android that really doesn't have any window capability is
crazy! Lots of context switches, and lots of interactions needed for tasks
that might otherwise just be a few. I find that aspect of Android and the
Metro UX paradigm crippling.

Where these ugly things are in play, using more than one display is basically
buying a window and all that goes with having multiple windows. Doesn't have
to go that way, and I would argue, shouldn't as a default for computing.

~~~
fallat
I'm with your here. The whole purpose of virtual desktops is to have
more...desktops. No need to turn your head...just a flick of the fingers.

~~~
ddingus
Yep. They are great. Some of the better ones allow for moving a window to
another desktop easily too. Perfect for that, "but I need this for a minute"
type use cases.

There is a trend toward minimalism going on. I'm not sure it's to our benefit.

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InclinedPlane
I have developed a loathing for think pieces which put forward the ludicrous
proposition that all programming, or worse yet all "tech" work, is somehow
more or less identical and thus requires the same workflows and benefits from
the same advice.

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xamuel
One of the key advantages of single-screen is you don't cripple yourself
whenever you're at a conference/on a train/etc. If you get yourself used to
working on a highly portable machine like a macbook air, it's like there were
chains connecting you to your desk and suddenly those chains just fall to the
ground.

~~~
chaney
That seems illogical to me. I spend 90% of my time at my desk with a 2-monitor
setup. When I have to use a laptop I do, but it would be counter-productive to
use it all the time. IBM Model M, mouse, loads of screen vs poor keyboard,
trackpad, tiny screen. I don't get it.

~~~
xamuel
At the moment, I'm working mostly remote, and I have a small child at home.
Under these circumstances I'd be six feet underground by now if I was anchored
to a desk like that. But yeah, if I didn't have the kid, and had the luxury of
just calmly sitting down to code in an office without distractions, a second
monitor could have its uses.

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wumbernang
I went from two 22" screens and an Aeron, neck ache, back ache and eyestrain
to one 12" screen at 1280x800 and no problems. I RDP to the big workstation
connected to the monitors and use my laptop as a terminal.

I get to move around all the time and sit in different positions and can just
grab the thing and tether off my phone for a bit. Thursday I went and sat in
Kew Gardens (£62/year for an office with a nice view!).

The lack of fatigue and general wellbeing that comes with this flexibility has
been orders of magnitude more productive than window layouts.

Everything is just full screen with alt-tabing. I have open Outlook, two word
docs, one excel sheet, 6 visual studio instances, hyper-v manager, PuTTY,
Paint.net, about 40 FF tabs, keepassx and PowerShell ISE.

The only time I hit the desktop machine is when I need to frig a large image.

Note: The only negative is bird shit.

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caseyf7
The trend I see is developers moving away from two monitors to one big one.
Less head movement, fewer cables, and fewer software driver issues seem to be
the reason.

~~~
highace
This is exactly what I've done - the Philips BDM4065UC is a 40" 4k monitor, so
the overall pixel density is about the same as a 24" 1080p. It's like having 4
x 1080p monitors in a block. Also it runs at 60hz over a single displayport
cable if your output supports it.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I went to one 28" 4K monitor. Just as many pixels as before, all compressed
into a higher PPI...it is beautiful. I can't wait for 5K. Not having a second
monitor is annoying for real estate management reasons, but Windows 10 (and OS
X.next) will support tiling on the desktop, so no prob in the long term.

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PhasmaFelis
As far as I can tell, his argument boils down to "having two screens hurts
your productivity if you use the second screen to watch YouTube instead of
work." Gosh, really?

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scottmcdot
I just started a new job in meteorological model development and even though
the company is now quite large, everyone in my team is running Ubuntu with
only one 24" monitor. At first I felt it was cramped but now I feel that it
allows me to finish off small micro tasks first before I interchange between
windows. Using two monitors, I'd often leave things/code unfinished because
I'd shift all my attention to another screen.

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FranOntanaya
I use i3wm on a 15" laptop and usually have applications running on all nine
virtual desktops.

I moved away from two screens with OpenBox because the window juggling was
still killing me. Having two screens didn't cut it down that much, and tapping
two keys to switch desktops and move apps in front of me is a lot simpler and
quicker than translating between screens.

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thrownaway122
This depends upon how you use the second screen! If you keep your email client
open at all times and in view then of course it will distract you. However, if
you keep several source files open at the same time then you can quickly
switch between them.

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decisiveness
Using keyboard shortcuts to quickly switch work spaces seems to be the best of
both worlds. It allows you to keep distractions out of sight while requiring
minimal effort to quickly access other screens/windows when needed.

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resoluteteeth
Both at home and at work, I have two monitors, but I keep the second one off
maybe 75% of the time since I'm doing things that don't require the additional
screen real estate and I don't want to get distracted. It's still totally
worth having it available for the 25% of the time when I'm doing tasks that
really require it, though.

(At work I really only need to see one window most of the time. At home I do
more stuff that requires multiple windows, but I use a tiling window manager
which helps get the most out of the first monitor before needing to add the
second one into the equation.)

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Yizahi
I don't know about writing long stuff or focused debug sessions but for QA two
big monitors is real physical need. For example I need one or two instances of
web interface that I test, several shells for logs, cli and support linux PCs,
rdp, two analyzer programs, QC with test cases and stuff, any number of needed
docs (specs, plans, general tech publications), some notepad with highlighting
and the list goes on. And this is not including two work email clients and two
work messengers.

Actually I use two monitors and laptop screen, so in total three monitors and
on each I tab between several applications.

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sklivvz1971
No less than 9 peer-reviewed studies have shown that more real estate is
better for productivity.

The NY Times should do some basic fact checking before publishing op-eds like
this :-(

[http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1700/do-
bigger-o...](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1700/do-bigger-or-
more-monitors-increase-productivity)

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bitwarrior
I think the big caveat, or really, necessary adjustment to the title, is "if
all you're doing is writing and you've got your email client up on the other
monitor like a chump".

I was honestly expecting this to be a study, some sort of university eye-
tracking experiment that had some evidence. Instead I got:

> I turned off the extra screen on my desktop computer...I found something
> increasingly elusive in our multiscreen world: focus...I have no research
> proving you’ll find as much benefit from a single monitor as I did.

Oh, ok.

> While extra monitors might increase productivity in certain situations — the
> sort of situations that can be easily tested in a research setting — they
> seem to do so at a high cost, by displaying a stream of digital splendors,
> constantly vying for your attention.

Or, perhaps the sort of situations where the user is _trying_ to be
productive? "Digital splendors"? If you're using your second (or third, what
have you) monitor for fucking YouTube videos, no, you're not going to be
magically more productive.

Then we have the biggest non sequitur I've seen in "print":

> ...people using a dual-display machine to do a text-editing task were 44
> percent more productive than those who used a single monitor.

Good so far.

> But for most people, the time spent juggling two windows or scrolling across
> large documents isn’t the biggest bottleneck in getting work done. Instead,
> there’s a more basic, pernicious reason you feel constantly behind — you’re
> getting distracted.

Yes, being distracted can indeed be bad. We haven't established why dual
monitors would inherently create distractions though.

> Studies show that office workers are interrupted every four to 11 minutes by
> external distractions including phone calls, email and people who stop by
> your desk to chat about the weekend.

Phone calls, the number of emails you receive and people coming over to your
desk is not going to change with additional monitors. These distractions lay
outside the domain of the concern of a second monitor's impact on
productivity.

> Then there are self-motivated distractions, when, for no apparent reason,
> you quit working on your project and do something else — for instance, jump
> into the rabbit hole of the web.

Which can be done just as readily with a single monitor.

> “The second screen can also be an inviting entry-way for self-distraction,”
> Ms. Mark said. That’s because it’s an ever-present, available canvas calling
> out for you to fire up a web window and find solace in the latest thrills on
> YouTube.

Is your second monitor an empty "canvas"? Listen, if you're going to visit
YouTube, you're going to do that with or without 2, 3 or 4 monitors.

Anyhow, this reads like click bait, I think I've spent too more time
critiquing the article than the author spent writing it. As a front end
engineer, and with 2 Thuderbolts and 1 Macbook Pro, I use all my screens to
their maximum potential. This morning while working on our public site I had
my localhost site running fullscreen on one thunderbolt, my code in vim
running on the other, and the photoshop comp on the Macbook. When strictly in
JS mode I'll typically have the same setup but docs or gitx running on the
laptop.

If you're choosing to be distracted, no, a second monitor isn't going to
somehow change that.

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codecamper
I like using just the laptop screen.

However, I find OS X's animations between screens distracting. I wish there
was a way to instantly switch between screens, without the animation.

Early Linux had these F1 F2 macros that would allow you to jump between
terminals. That's what I want on my Mac.

Also I want 16GB on my MB Air, but that is another story.

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kdoherty
Working on Web apps needing a terminal window, Web page, Web console, and
editor up simultaneously makes 2 monitors almost a necessity for decent
productivity. If I'm not using both monitors, I shut one off - easy.

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scotty79
I don't use second screen much but from time to time I keep some stuff there
(most often remote or virtual desktops) and when I procrastinate I do in on
main screen anyways.

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beerbajay
Two horizontal 16:9 screens are usually awful. Two vertical screens, on the
other hand, let you see more and don't extend as far out of the center of your
vision.

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dharma1
anyone use a 21:9 screen? like these [http://www.lg.com/uk/ultrawide-
monitors](http://www.lg.com/uk/ultrawide-monitors)

~~~
CrazedGeek
I picked a 29" one up a month ago. I haven't done any development work on it,
but for the other work I've done it was much nicer than a single 16:9 and less
annoying to manage than multiple monitors.

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kaydenh
It depends on how you use the second screen.

Using [http://focusr.co](http://focusr.co) exclusively on a second screen has
been effective at getting me to focus.

~~~
raziel2p
I can't even tell what that app(?) does from the website. Something about
focusing. Will it feed me adderall?

------
drakonka
But what about three screens?

~~~
cnvogel
I have three, upgraded from two. It's very useful when doing electronics
layouting (one for schematic, one pcb routing, one full of toolbars). But I
got the 3rd basically for free when a colleague upgraded, the quality of the
toolbar monitor is unimportant.

------
Nemcue
tldr; How you use the computer / manage application windows is more important
than multiple screens for productivity. If the way you interact with windows
and applications isn't cerebral then you're doing it wrong.

First of all, I'd say his argument is perhaps less applicable if you're a
programmer. If all you're using a word processor and a browser, then maybe you
can get by. If you're doing programming and designing, and need a couple of
applications as well as a few terminal windows — then maybe it's not so
applicable.

However, I do find this subject matter really interesting. I've been thinking
and observing about this a lot just this last year, and I think it's not so
much about screens as it is how poorly most people use computers.

I think the main productivity killer is the cursor and how people do window
management: focusing an app, resizing, moving, shifting screens and so on.

As an example, say you as a professional need to use three applications, and
most of the time you use these applications in a maximized state — taking up
most of the screen space.

Now, if you want to shift attention between these applications, there are a
couple of alternatives. You could alt-tab, which is imprecise and slow, since
you have to mentally go through the alt-tab stack of applications and find the
one you're looking for. Of course, you can use alt-tab to toggle between two
specific windows, but if you slip up and press it twice then you bring focus
to some other application. It's just not really a good way of switching
windows.

Another way is of course to use some graphical element targeting a specific
application. Maybe the bottom menu (the dock on OSX). This is also imprecise
and tedious. Windows tries to fix this with having the order of the
applications correlate to shortcuts. So the first one can be activated using
Windows Key + 1, the second one with Windows Key + 2 etc. This still leaves
you with the problem however that you lose state between toggling applications
since your cursor isn't where you left it for that particular application.
There's also not a good way of toggling between _windows_ for an application:
say you have two chrome windows, and you want to switch between them.

Or maybe you have multiple screens, and you now have to drag the cursor
between the windows. Super slow and imprecise, and maybe the cursor even gets
caught between the screens since one of them is in portrait mode and the other
is in landscape — now you have to spend even more mental effort just to get it
to where you want to go.

The way I've solved these issues — which has given me a huge productivity
boost with a laptop in particular but it's also very tangible on desktop
computers with multiple screens as well — is to create a really smart system
to jump between applications where it remembers where the cursor was for that
particular window, and if the cursor is in some nonsensical place when you
jump to an application window then it's instead reset by centering on that
particular window. It also uses a graphical element surrounding the cursor
which shows for about half a second, so I don't have to spend any mental
effort to find it. I also have a very nice system to manipulate windows which
sort of works like Divvy where using the keyboard I can on the fly define a
grid on the screen, and move or resize the focused window inside of that grid.

Using things like this makes it cerebral. I don't have to think, or spend
mental effort targeting things. It's all super precise and I don't even think
about windows and screens most of the time, it's all mechanics that have
become invisible to me when I work.

I'd bet with this setup I'd be a lot more productive with one screen than
someone with two screens without a similar setup.

