If you read in low light, your visual muscles get mixed signals: Relax to collect the most light, but at the same time, contract to maintain the focused image. When that object is poorly lit, focusing becomes even more difficult because the contrast between the words and the page is not as great, which decreases the eye's ability to distinguish visual detail. … Your eyes have to work harder to separate the words from the page, which strains your eye muscles. Consider this to be strenuous exercise for your eye muscles. So your eye muscles will ache, much as your arm muscles and leg muscles become sore after strenuous exercise. When your eyes are working this hard for a long period of time, the strain may cause a number of physical effects. Symptoms of eye strain include sore eyeballs, headaches, back and neck aches, drooping eyelids and blurred vision. Because you often don't blink enough when focusing on a single object, you may also experience uncomfortable dryness in your eyes. None of this damages your eyes, and all of it eventually goes away after you stop straining them”