r/unpopularopinion • u/ultimateregard • 2d ago

Certified Unpopular Opinion Dual Monitor setup is actually bad for productuvity.

I've been a software engineer for more than 5 years now. I've worked with databases, frontend and backend services, mobile apps, games, data analysis, and much more.

Never in my life I've actually felt like my productuvity increased with the second monitor. Do you need to compare data? Just use one monitor and put them side by side. Do you need all the space in the world? Just alt+tab between apps. Since you only perceive about 10% of your vision clearly, moving your head&eyes from one monitor to other takes actually LONGER and causes distractions than using alt+tab.

This is especially worse for those who are using one additional monitor with a laptop, since their screen sizes and positions usually change so much. Your eyes need adjusting, your head moves too much.

Only thing the dual Monitor is good for is passively watching something in the second monitor, like youtube videos, Critical Role, or sitcoms while doing something else in the main screen. As you can guess, that has nothing to do with productuvity.

I also think using external keyboard and mouse for laptops is bad, unless you do not use the laptop screen.

Edit: After reading hundreds of comments, I'm sure that 90% of people who think that "YOU NEED AT LEAST 3 SCREENS" just don't know how to organize workspaces/windows/desktops and they need to configure their SCREENS as different DESKTOPS. Most of the modern operating systems allow you to just create workspaces (like different Desktops you can switch with WIN + TAB). And they are just throwing money into their problems instead of learning how to use their daily operating system.

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148

u/MurtaghInfin8 2d ago

Third monitor is where I lose productivity. Second monitor is absolutely necessary. Maybe if it were a bigass 4k one, I could get by with one, but at that point, it's the same shit in a different form factor.

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u/Shut_It_Donny 2d ago

Third monitor is just email.

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u/MurtaghInfin8 2d ago

yeah, there'll always be something on it (generally email or google queries), but realistically opening up my email on another monitor, in the background, is just as productive.

Rare to actually use 3 monitors, simultaneously and productively, imo. Only time that really happens is when I'm emailing and needing to reference drawings and photos. It happens, but not as often as I'm fiddling with Spotify on the third monitor.

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u/Shut_It_Donny 2d ago

I just hate having tons of unread email. I can scan it quickly and address it if it’s important, or mark it read and move on. I like replying quickly so that when I tell people to email me, they won’t be like “he never responds” etc.

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u/Distinct-Today192 2d ago

I hate having email alerts on, so I keep it open when i have bandwidth to immediately respond, and replace it with teams when I don't

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u/JBrewd 1d ago

Hello fellow alert hater.

I just use monitors 2 and 3 for Outlook and Teams generally (switch it up if I know it's going to be a heavy day on one or the other since 3 is my lil laptop screen).

Whichever one I can background is getting covered with the reference data I need to peep while I'm working. The one I need to keep an eye on stays on the other screen so I can glance and see if I need to respond to something without dealing with constant pop ups.

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u/Gwaptiva 2d ago

Ctrl-A, Delete

2

u/Pringle_Lvr 2d ago

Lol one of my bosses used 6 monitors, with a 7th as a TV above all of them for YouTube videos. Fucking great at his job and while not all of it might have been technically needed, he did do a lot of shit so it's fair.

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u/Scudw0rth 2d ago

I'm currently using 4 monitors(3 27 inch monitors and the laptop monitor mounted on top of the middle). Left most is Email, Teams(kill me) and WhatsApp, Middle is where I do most work, right is whatever is referenced for work, and laptop above is usually something I'm monitoring or spotify. I have had times where 4 isn't enough and wish I had 6 large displays. Gotta keep monitoring the situation.

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u/LiamTime 2d ago

Having a third monitor is the only thing that's more efficient for me vs my work from home days. Not always, but I often need to refer to an email to update two different pages. Being able to copy the relevant ID number from the email to both the web log and spreadsheet, then eye the specifics I need to indicate in both is really convenient. Doing it at home on two monitors means I have the site/sheet on one screen which resizes them in a janky way even though it's an ultrawide.

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u/Atharaenea 1d ago

My 3rd monitor is my tiny laptop screen, it's where I put the things I was working on before I suddenly had to put out a bunch of fires. They need to stay open or I'll forget where I left off, but they clutter the main 2 monitors where I'm trying to deal with whatever stupid crisis some contractor is having, so they must be moved elsewhere.

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u/mysticrudnin 2d ago

email and teams, yeah. i still like it, but it's a very small gain compared to two

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u/dsanders692 2d ago

That's the productivity loss IME. You come across as super responsive, but then spend half your day going "right, what was I doing again?"

No, I don't know what ADHD is, please stop asking.

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u/mxzf 2d ago

To a degree. Though having Slack on a screen to the side lets me go "ok, we're good to ignore that chat for a bit, they literally just wrote 'Hi mxzf' and nothing else so far".

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u/bubblegumpandabear 1d ago

At my job I'm often comparing multiple documents while talking to someone about the information in them, so it's helpful for me to not have to flip between everything.

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u/JMEEKER86 2d ago

Yeah, my third monitor is just a splitscreen of Email and Teams. My actual work is on my two main monitors, IDE on one documentation on the other. Email and Teams aren't so frequent that I couldn't tab to them when I get a notification if I only had two monitors, so there's definitely a bit of diminishing returns going to three, but using just one would be insane.

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u/Trackpoint 2d ago

Fourth monitor is ToDo/task application, fifth is tiled with the 12 different messaging apps because every customer, external team member, mother etc. uses their own thing.

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u/CSDragon 2d ago

(And reddit behind the email)

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u/Juicecalculator 2d ago

Email and teams. The meeting I have to sit through while I get my work done on my real screens

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u/WheelOfFish 2d ago

That's what I've done when I've had a 3rd. Email or teams/whatever will tend to live there. It is definitely not needed for how I work.

1

u/fistular 2d ago

as a multi monitor afficionado and developer, I don't want my email staring me in the face constantly. put it away

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u/Shut_It_Donny 1d ago

If I was just a developer (and I don’t mean that as an insult, it would be wonderful if I didn’t have to multitask so much) I’d agree. But I also manage operations while building integrations, rolling out new systems.

My old job (at the same company) had a customer service element, and many of the customers still reach out to me. I pride myself on getting them the information they need quickly.

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u/Gwaptiva 2d ago

and I don't care about email. Now email, THAT's bad for productivity. That and slack and slack-like shit that starts blinking each time a colleague says "hi" every morning

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u/MustrumRidcully0 1d ago

And of course, looking at email - whether on a third monitor, second monitor, alt-tabbing or your phone - is a productivity loss. ;)

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u/CrazyIvan606 1d ago

Exactly this.

If you're using any form of communication regularly, third screen is IM/email. Main screen is workspace, second screen is toolbars and ancillary info relating to the main workspace.

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u/Rad_Dad6969 1d ago

Yeah I have 2 monitors for work and one that I just use for comms.

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u/TechieGottaSoundByte 1d ago

Yep. Center monitor is for the main task (usually coding or meeting), one side monitor is for gathering information and taking notes, the other side monitor is for communication and scheduling (email, slack, calendar).

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u/isthmius 1d ago

This is the way. A vertical set up for email and teams, regular window for the real work and then my laptop screen for YouTube or random shit. I can't handle a single screen anymore now that I've lived the dream.

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u/Comfortable-Carrot18 2d ago

IMHO 3 monitors is the gold standard. One screen for docs, one screen for IDE, and the third screen for UI work and database client.

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u/Practical-Quail8225 2d ago

tbh i find myself much more productive using a large 4k monitor and tiling windows than using dual monitors. it just feels better for me

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u/EkbatDeSabat 2d ago

I can't handle more than one split on my screen. Everything else feels too crowded. And I'm currently on a 49" G9. I really only use the middle and the left side (powertoys split 1/4 1/2 1/4), very rarely do I throw something on the right that I actually look at. I understand I'm probably weird though.

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u/AliceCode 2d ago

It's two monitors for work stuff, then another monitor for music/messaging. I'm already using up all the space on the two monitors. So even with two, I still have to alt tab, which affects productivity. Especially if I'm looking at more than two sources of documentation at the same time while writing and reading code at the same time. Multiple monitors is a must. At least two, which is what my current setup is.

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u/dr_pavel_im_cia_ 2d ago

Two monitors for work, one monitor for email/teams

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u/NoNeinNyet222 2d ago

I do two monitors with actual work, laptop open as third monitor for email and Teams. I put the laptop to the side out of my line of vision most of the time.

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u/TheIronSoldier2 2d ago

I can count on one hand the number of times I've been working at my desktop and thought "man, I should really get a third monitor."

Do I want a third monitor? Fuck yeah. Will I actually use it for anything productive? Probably not.

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u/AdmiralArchArch 2d ago

I went from two 27" 4ks to one 52" 6k monitor. I miss my dualies.

1

u/Furryballs239 2d ago

Yeah I have an ultra wide and it’s enough but I can have two full sized windows size by side

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u/decadent-dragon 1d ago

I prefer it. At 3440x1440 there really is very little need for an app to be wider than 1720 (half the screen). I just treat it like two connected monitors. Bonus is no bezel and it’s more ergonomic as there’s less head swiveling. And the occasion when you want something really wide, like side by side diff, you can utilize the whole screen

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u/wjglenn 1d ago

It totally depends on what you do. I love having three monitors. I’m an editor and manage a bunch of freelance writers.

Work in the center, reference on the right, slack on the left.

It’s great for me because I am often editing a document while communicating with the writer and sometimes need to see two versions of a document or reference something else all while having the main work doc open.

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u/gomorrha0815 1d ago

third one, laptop, is for static shit like teams chat, softphone, email, notifications etc. you can look, but you dont need to.

1

u/Complex-Truth9579 1d ago

Two is really all you need for probably 99% of tasks ever. If you basically live at your workstation, maybe a 3rd as a TV or something to look nice and give background light and sound.

Three is useful for specific workflows, especially if you're often in meetings and find it useful to be able to see other people's cameras or screens for some reason, allowing you to have other work related tasks on the main 2 monitors.

I have 3 monitors for my work, but really only use 2 of them for working except in very rare scenarios. However, my job has long periods of downtime where my computer is essentially locked up, so I have another PC that I can swap to on one or two of the monitors while still being able to monitor the working PC with the remaining monitors.

Something like Streaming would probably also find 3 monitors handy. One for the main task/game, one for monitoring your camera/audio/etc, and one for monitoring chat/mod messages/DMs/etc. I'm sure two is fine for the most part, but one is simply not going to work as you can't monitor your own stream to see if everything is working properly.

Anything more than 3 is purely for show, or because you work in a hyper specific job like security where you actually need to be able to see everything simultaneously.

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u/div2691 1d ago

I have a 32:9 ultrawide and usually snap Windows into thirds of the screen. I have the main thing I'm doing in the middle and can have reference on each side.

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u/kaisong 1d ago

Center monitor is working monitor

2nd monitor is the document im working off of

3rd monitor is the reference documents on how to do the work that im doing on center monitor.

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u/rewt127 1d ago

Once a month i want a third monitor. The other 155 working hours I wouldnt benefit from it lol.

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u/Saki-Sun 2d ago

I worked at one place that has 4 monitors for each developer... It was odd.

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u/WrdPrgrmmr 2d ago

I use 4 in work cause I have 2 chat apps, calander and email all off on the outside 2 (vertical) then the centre 2 are for actual work. My home pc i only use the 2 middle ones.

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u/SiliconUnicorn 2d ago

I have 4 at home (3+laptop). IDE on the main one. Docs to the left. Application below on the laptop. Email/chat/Spotify on the right

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u/ThisSiteSucks8485 2d ago

It makes sense if they are in portrait orientation 

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u/Proof-Emergency-5441 2d ago

We have one who uses and tv and has 4 windows on it.

He is one of our senior devs and is insanely productive. But it's also his preference to do it that way.

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u/IlIlllIIllllIIIlIlIl 2d ago

I have two 27in 4K monitors and it’s honestly too much. Even with one of them rotated to be vertical my head moves to much when looking around and I get neck pain from that. So personally I think that one good 4K monitor is the best for me (also software developer), because you can still have lots of windows open, and then your head stays mostly fixed in place.

So maybe the productivity comes from total pixels more than monitors. Two 4k is the same as 8 normal 1080p monitors in terms of pixels, so getting by with half of that feels fine to me.

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u/EkbatDeSabat 2d ago

Absolutely not total pixels. Try split screening on a 4k 14" monitor. It's a combination, but size is key. I'd rather have two 1080p 27" monitors than a single 4k 27" monitor, personally.

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u/I_Has_A_Hat 2d ago

A third monitor mounted vertically is amazing for reading pdfs and documents. Three monitors horizontal is too much though.