Yeah, I’m very much Team Lone Monitor. You can only see sufficient detail to work with text in a limited area in front of you. I can flip between desktops in sway faster than I can look from side to side. Honestly, my current monitor is already probably excessive in screen space for productivity stuff.
And the ergonomics are preferable if you’re using secondary monitors much. You ideally want the display in front of you:
Raise your monitor so the top is at or just below eye level.
Position it about an arm’s length away.
Centre it directly in front of you.
These principles align with ergonomic research on neutral posture and reduced upper‑limb load (Rempel et al., 2007).
I remember working on a dual monitor setup split in the middle back in the 1990s, and while it was never a huge issue, after a day of working, my neck was stiff from looking to the left.
Added bonus of a single-monitor setup: less power use, and you can work on a (more-portable) laptop without extra screens without breaking your workflow.
I think using tiling based windows is one of the things that makes it easier for single monitor. I use i3 and it’s way quicker to refer to something on another workspace compared to if I were to have them in separate monitors or stacked views. When using extra monitors i just have it open browser most of the time.
Yeah, I’m very much Team Lone Monitor. You can only see sufficient detail to work with text in a limited area in front of you. I can flip between desktops in sway faster than I can look from side to side. Honestly, my current monitor is already probably excessive in screen space for productivity stuff.
And the ergonomics are preferable if you’re using secondary monitors much. You ideally want the display in front of you:
https://worksmarthub.com/monitor-ergonomics/
I remember working on a dual monitor setup split in the middle back in the 1990s, and while it was never a huge issue, after a day of working, my neck was stiff from looking to the left.
Added bonus of a single-monitor setup: less power use, and you can work on a (more-portable) laptop without extra screens without breaking your workflow.
I think using tiling based windows is one of the things that makes it easier for single monitor. I use i3 and it’s way quicker to refer to something on another workspace compared to if I were to have them in separate monitors or stacked views. When using extra monitors i just have it open browser most of the time.
I use a single monitor but it’s 42" 4k.
I do a lot of stuff where I need 2 or more documents visible side by side and it’s next to impossible to work efficiently on a single small screen.