Comment by doodpants

If your monitor is shining like a bright flashlight in your eyes, then you have your monitor's brightness turned up too high. (And/or your room's ambient lighting is too low.) A window with a white background should appear no brighter than a white piece of paper held up next to your monitor. If you use this technique to adjust the brightness of your monitor, you can read black-on-white text all day long and never get eye fatigue. I've been adjusting my displays this way for ~20 years.