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The suggestion about low lighting in the article, I recently read that reading in low light is associated with myopia/nearsightedness in children so there is that angle too.
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It looks at the emitted energy from the screen. The ebook emits directly, a foot from your face. The paper book is reflected energy, at a rather higher reflectance and a rather lower energy. It's amazing how dim a light you can read a paper book in vs an e-ink ereader.
A lot of people over the age of 40 or even 35 are going to have trouble reading a physical text from a comfortable distance in light dim and warm enough not to affect one's circadian rhythm. Though I see your points and agree with aspects of this piece I also really struggle to see how a dim light close to your face is objectively worse than lighting your entire room in order to read a book and think extreme statemen…
I've experimented with self-lit screens vs lantern lit {books, e-ink screens} vs overhead incandescent bulb lit {books, e-ink screens}. The results are clear. LED lit screens are awful for my sleep.
But we disagree on a major point about LED screens being "inevitable." That is, certainly, the current cultural default. No question. But I also know a lot of people who are rejecting that default - partly due to their own experiments with "But how do I sleep?"
I don't think LED lighting is a force of nature, by any means. I think it's a human decision, that we can agree to or not. And if it's a problem after dark, as I argue it is, then we ought reject it in favor of things that don't mess with our sleep and overnight melatonin levels.
Andrew Huberman of Huberman Lab podcast discusses this in the first 4-5 episodes of the podcast. The takeaway is: it's late-night bright light, rather than blue light, that has effects on the circadian rhythm. It's an appeal to authority but I think I'll go with the professor of neurobiology and opthalmology on this one.
A good summary here-
https://www.reddit.com/r/podcasts/comments/rpu1b4/any_opinio...
I have found if I work hard, exercise my mind and body, I can fall asleep in about seven minutes and sleep for a solid six. I go to bed at Ten. Up at 4:30am. My sleep score averages 81.
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It looks at the emitted energy from the screen. The ebook emits directly, a foot from your face. The paper book is reflected energy, at a rather higher reflectance and a rather lower energy. It's amazing how dim a light you can read a paper book in vs an e-ink ereader.
A lot of people over the age of 40 or even 35 are going to have trouble reading a physical text from a comfortable distance in light dim and warm enough not to affect one's circadian rhythm. Though I see your points and agree with aspects of this piece I also really struggle to see how a dim light close to your face is objectively worse than lighting your entire room in order to read a book and think extreme statemen…
This, so very much this. I no longer read physical books. I need more light to do so, I need readers (which give me a headache). eBooks are the best thing for me, and allow me to keep on reading where I think I'd have largely stopped by now if I could only have paper books.
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Thanks, I'll order some of those and put them through my spectrometer!
If you're willing, it would also be interesting to hear how the Bedtime Bulb from a past Show HN fares: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18011075
I would love to poke with one, but if the only way to buy one is through Amazon, I'm quite unlikely to actually obtain one. I genuinely don't care if I have to pay a bit more, I hate what Amazon has done to retail.
Andrew Huberman of Huberman Lab podcast discusses this in the first 4-5 episodes of the podcast. The takeaway is: it's late-night bright light, rather than blue light, that has effects on the circadian rhythm. It's an appeal to authority but I think I'll go with the professor of neurobiology and opthalmology on this one.
(Post author here, huh, it hit HN...) This is not consistent with the studies I've read. It's a "total lumineous flux in the 460-490nm range" concern. The deep reds, up past 600nm, don't seem to have any impact on melatonin, nor do violets below ~420nm - though they can have other impacts on the retina and such. Bright light will, all other things being equal, be worse than dim light, but "dim blue light" is still re…
That it uses way less power is actually just a side effect of me wanting all the blue lights off at night. I know it's not for everybody, but I find it really relaxing. The trick is to get one that's not a joke lamp from china with a fat markup but a nice headlamp with powerful LEDs. Like this: https://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en_US/product/spot-400...
The relevant bit being: "Settings include proximity and distance modes, dimming, strobe, red LED night-vision and lock mode"
I also have a couple of 'hurricane' lanterns and I really enjoy the fire-based lighting but even with "clean" kerosene the smell can be unpleasant indoors.
I have tried going back to incandescent for the spectrum part. The main issue I faced was the number of light bulbs required to get sufficient enough lighting. At least the incandescents we get in my area, mostly werent bright enough. The suggestion about low lighting in the article, I recently read that reading in low light is associated with myopia/nearsightedness in children so there is that angle too.
My kids are mostly in bed by the time this matters to me, at least in the winter months. And I'd like to think they get plenty of lighting during the day, as we kick them outside for some period of time every day, regardless of weather (bundle up in the winter).
We have a well windowed house (just not in the OS sense), so it's rather bright in there - when the sun is up. And I don' think LEDs matter when the sun is up. I think they do matter after the sun is down, when I'm careful about light.
So if you've got some studies arguing that "bright light indoors, after the sun has gone down, is important to children," please - link them so I can read them.
Edit: or why don’t manufacturers put ‘blue light filters’ in to the plastic diffuser many LED bulbs have?
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Thanks for the reply! I don't want to be overly critical and I agree it's important. And yes trying to keep things briefer matters too and is something I often struggle with. I just don't think the tradeoffs were quite right. The alarmism approach has gotten overdone, because in terms of percentages there are lots of things we just live with that are "killing us" by the measures you use there. I deal a fair amount wi…
Again, I appreciate the feedback. It's a post I really struggled with the details of, and I've been putting off actually publishing it in some form or another for months now. The problem is... yeah. This stuff, as I see it, is very literally killing us. Our modern civilization, in a wide range of shapes and forms, is "human toxic" - and as a random blogger in the backwaters of the internet, I see no harm in calling a…
Ahem, The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. From professor Ted: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unab...