Live data from Hacker News

E-Readers Foil Good Night’s Sleep

hms.harvard.edu

11–15 of 15 posts

Re: E-Readers Foil Good Night’s Sleep

#11
post #8

E-Readers is wrong. The study used as a "light-emitting" book an iPad (p. 1235). So it is tablets and smartphones. It is not even clear to me if a Kindle Paperwhite would fall into the category.

The Kindle Paperwhite can not be turned up as bright as the iPad can, which would mean that the results of this study do not apply. The results of the study are basically that having bright light shone in your eyes interferes with your sleep (nothing to do with iPad vs book).

Re: E-Readers Foil Good Night’s Sleep

#12
post #7

Interesting, I've been wondering about this myself lately, as I've started to read on an e-book reader ~30 minutes before going to sleep as a part of my routine. Too bad they only used iPads for this study. I wonder if it's better for my sleep to read a "normal" book with the lights on, or if it's better to read with an ereader with the minimum amount of brightness on. I think I receive less blue light with the secon…

You can buy ambient lighting that has low blue content, e.g. the "Evening PM" version of the GE Align, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PLR3M0M

Re: E-Readers Foil Good Night’s Sleep

#13

The headline doesn't reflect the content: "Although iPads were used in this study, researchers also measured other devices that emit blue light, including eReaders, laptops, cell phones and LED monitors." So, they did a user study using iPads, and only measured the other devices. They then claim the results apply to those other devices. TFA didn't have a link to the paper (as far as I could tell), but it's here: http…

Even stranger is that the iPad was fixed in position on the table, with brightness set to maximum.

The maximum brightness on an iPad means you can read the screen in broad daylight. I can not see how this level of brightness lends itself to bedtime reading in a dimly lit room.

Re: E-Readers Foil Good Night’s Sleep

#14

The title of the article is misleading, as the participants were reading on a tablet, not an e-reader. ( "During the two-week inpatient study, twelve participants read digital books on an iPad for four hours before bedtime each night for five consecutive nights." ) Having used an iPad, a Kindle, and a Kobo, I know from experience that there's a huge difference in the quality and intensity of light emitted by the devi…

The Marvin e-reader app on iOS can control color temperature, to reduce blue content, http://www.appstafarian.com/marvin.html

It's unfortunate that iOS does not have platform-wide support for adjusting color temperature.

Re: E-Readers Foil Good Night’s Sleep

#15

The title could be misleading. It's light-emitting e-readers that affect sleep cycles, especially iPads which they used in the study. That means my sleep shouldn't be distracted significantly just because I read on my non-backlit Kindle.

It's even more misleading than that. The study really only demonstrated that having a spotlight shone in your face for four hours before going to bed will interfere with your sleep.
Post reply on HN