Digital Home Thoughts: One Makes a Lonely Monitor

"At homes and in offices, we’ve started to notice more than one display per desk. Ask the users of these multi-monitor desks whether they’d be willing to return to a single monitor system, and they’ll likely tell you they’ll give up the second display when you pry it from their cold, dead hands. So, what’s the appeal? Do multiple displays really make computer users more productive?"

I have seen people argue that widescreen displays are enough, and multiple monitors are not needed. While I find widescreen displays useful, the addition of extra monitors still seems to provide many more benefits. I have tried to quantify this, and I think a good portion of it comes down to the real estate in combination with the logical separation of two monitors. There are many tools that help you manage windows, especially with really high resolution screens, and I find a combination of both lets me have almost all the programs I need without overlap, but I would never give up multiple monitors. I would rather have smaller multiple monitors over one big monitor any day. Is multiple monitors as important to you? What would it take for you to give them up?