I have five guesses:

(1) That would require more diagnostics than an LED on a monitor is able to provide at a reasonable cost, (2) if you’re leaving the monitor on in a situation where burn-in is likely, you’re probably not at the monitor when it matters, (3) monitors are a mission-critical piece of hardware, meaning that them turning themselves off (or even just turning off certain pixels) randomly is not a great idea, (4) it’s probably the OS’s job to decide when to turn off the monitor, as the OS has the context to know what’s important and what isn’t, and how long it’s been since you’ve interacted with the device, and (5) it’s in the monitor manufacturer’s best interest for your monitor to get burn-in so that you have to replace it more often.

The actual answer is probably a combination of multiple things, but that’s my guess.

Honestly, setting a screen timeout (or even a screen saver!) is the solution to this problem. So the problem was more or less solved in the early 80s.

Interesting. I knew they were semiconductors, but I didn’t know they were also semimetals. Thanks for the details!

I figured, but I didn’t play along very well.

Fair point, I don’t know you. The average phone user, then. Most people use their phone about 4½ hours a day.

LEDs and OLEDs work the same way, the only difference is their composition. Standard LEDs use metals, OLEDs use organic compounds (which, yes, are more sensitive to breakdown over time, but come with the advantage of being smaller, lighter, more flexible, etc).

And actually, it’s that size and flexibility that makes an OLED panel possible. An LED display is actually just a color LCD display with a white LED backlight; you need OLED to have the individual pixels generate their own light. Burn-in on a non-organic LED display would be a completely different thing (and is possible but rare).

Burn-in isn’t a light being emitted when off, it’s a light being dimmer when on.

An LED works by passing current between two different semiconductors. When an electron jumps over the “gap” between those two semiconductors, it releases a photon of a particular color (determined by the size of the gap). But over time, as an LED is used, the gap can be damaged (by heat, by vibration, etc); when this happens, fewer electrons can jump the gap and thus fewer electrons produce photons. Or the properties of the gap are changed so that they emit a slightly different wavelength photon. So if you leave a particular set of pixels on, producing light, for an extended time, those LEDs will degrade more than the rest of the screen, leading that area to be discolored or dimmer. This is burn-in.

Most of the time, that’s fine, because the LEDs on your screen experience wear in a more-or-less uniform pattern. Your phone is somewhat less susceptible to this, since (1) you tend to have your phone screen off most of the time, (2) there aren’t as many persistent HUD elements even when it’s on, as every app has its own configuration of controls and UI elements, and (3) you tend to replace a phone more often than a monitor. When you replace your phone, it’s probably more-or-less evenly dimmer overall than it was when you bought it, but since you don’t have anything to compare it to, you won’t know; with burn-in, though, that comparison is right next to the burned-in pixels.

By contrast, a computer monitor will typically be on for 8+ hours at a time, and persistent display elements are a part of every major operating system. If you’re not using the LEDs in a panel more-or-less evenly, you’ll end up with a persistent image.

The mechanical action, not the content, is what’s important. So you want something you’ll be able to stay focused on (and not be bored by), but other than that it’s not a huge deal.

Actually this could be a good opportunity. If there’s something you want to learn really well—potentially even memorize parts of—writing it over and over is a good chance to do so.

Depending on where you’re going, you may not need to worry about it much. When I was in postsecondary education, there wasn’t much handwriting required. And I graduated 13 years ago; certainly things have gone more online since then. You might want to check with a current student in your field of study at your university and see what the handwriting requirements are. Make sure to ask whether cursive is a dealbreaker.

If it is something you’re going to need to work on, there’s really no getting around it: you’re going to need to practice. Cursive or print, you’re going to need to practice it. Get a big notebook, and something to write (hopefully something you’re actually interested in), and just start writing. Transcribe a TV show as you’re watching it. Copy a book line-for-line. You get good at the things you do a lot, and so you’re going to have to write a lot.

Also, I would recommend slowing down. My handwriting is great when I’m writing slowly but can be terrible when I speed up if I don’t pay attention. Slow down to start; if it’s still not legible, slow down even more. Make sure you aren’t practicing your existing bad habits. Then, as you practice, be deliberate: focus on each individual letterform, and as you become more comfortable writing legible letters, try to pick up the pace.

There are other things that you might find help you out: try practicing on wide-ruled paper, rather than college-ruled, for instance. Try a pencil or pen which moves more roughly across the page, for more tactile response. Make sure your pen or pencil is making strong, clear marks so that it’s obvious what legibility issues are your hand (and not just a bad implement).

You can change your writing style; I have, on a couple of occasions. It just takes practice.

Also Mozilla.

Yep, I’m here. My nine-year-old is writing a wizard spellbook while the seven-, four-, and two-year-old play outside. Let’s do a weekly discussion post, sounds fun.

Ok, I was on the “old.” skin; let’s try the standard skin.

Nope, it doesn’t work on the standard skin, either.

Hmm, weird. I notice that you’re using Firefox; maybe that’s the deal. I am too:

Aha! I think that might be it! I can’t on Firefox either.

Edit: Nope, just tried it on Boost, and that didn’t work either.

Did he finally wrest the reins from Gwynne Shotwell? She was calling the shots pretty effectively for a while.

Yeah, and I use a Pixel, so I don’t even really often have to hit any app icons at all, making this even more of a nothingburger.

Sure, which is why I didn’t put “again” after that, but it was really just necessary for the joke (because yeah, it’s obviously ridiculous).

There are some who call me…Tim?

Honestly who can tell at this point?

Much like Google Chat became Google Hangouts which became Google Chat, Google Wallet became Google Pay which became Google Wallet again.

How long before Google Play becomes Android Market again? Or YouTube becomes Google Video?

A duck!

I think that anything benign that separates evil people from a significant portion of their cash is fine by me. That’s millions of dollars they can’t use to break up unions, or replace human workers with AI, or pay for campaign ads (or hush money, or legal costs). And it’s not something that’s aiding them in those pursuits, so it’s generally just money they’re losing.

I think. That’s just my initial idea.