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Blue light filters don't work – controlling total luminance is a better bet

neuroai.science

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Re: Blue light filters don't work – controlling total luminance is a better bet

#151

Post by scythe »

The argument about luminance ranges is wrong. I measure the brightness of monitors regularly as part of my job, and typical maximum luminance values are in the range of 100-500 lux. That puts you right in the steep range of the visual response (especially if you are turning it down and near a max of 100), which is natural — maximizing the slope of the neuronal response to light means that more information will be available to the brain. In fact a good monitor will be tuned according to the just-noticeable difference which aims precisely to maximize the information available according to this characteristic curve. See e.g. the DICOM standard:

https://dicom.nema.org/medical/dicom/current/output/chtml/pa...

The author's basic problem is that he knows too much about the brain and not enough about monitors.

The author goes on to argue that you should be turning your brightness down, but most people already are turning their brightness down; the blue light filter is more comfortable. He does make a reasonable case that you should be reducing green light similarly, but people prefer the incandescent effect of the flux filter to a straightforward color filter — indeed a primary design goal of these filters has been to be pleasant to look at which is why people use them.

Re: Blue light filters don't work – controlling total luminance is a better bet

#152

Post by UlisesAC4 »

galangalalgol wrote: post #147
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #141

I found the basic premise of this blog post to be incredibly flawed. The author seems very sure of himself that blue light filters don't work, but making arguments related to cell types and emissions spectra and circadian rhythms is not the way to make a conclusive argument in a topic like this. Science is littered with recommendations about things that "plausibly" made sense, but that turned out to be flawed or just…

His argument seems to be that the night modes don't remove much blue. My initial assumption was that it was about physical filters. Yellow or amber 99%+ safety lenses are a thing and several of my coworkers wear them. Looking through them at those painfully bright blue leds makes them appear to be off. Yes everything looks strange, but they work. Likewise a different coworker manually removes all blue in the monitor…

I can absolutely confirm that night mode works wonders. Since ten years ago I discovered them I no longer have dry eye like problems.

Re: Blue light filters don't work – controlling total luminance is a better bet

#153

Post by RupertSalt »

cpburns2009 wrote: post #62
KaiserPro wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because if you read the article its about blue light filters to aid sleep not ease of reading. The the grift wheel on this particular bandwagon is strong. To the point where my fucking glasses have a blue filter on them, which fucks up my ability to do colour work becuase everything is orange.

Blue light filtering lenses come at a premium. You don't accidentally get them.

Let me explain how many times I went back-and-forth with the opticians about "is this coating/feature optional?"

Re: Blue light filters don't work – controlling total luminance is a better bet

#154

Post by tcfhgj »

0x1ch wrote: post #100
thatcat wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about how it looks aesthetically, you can feel your eye muscles release tension when you go from light to dark mode.

End of the day, dark mode would've been totally ignored if there wasn't a perceivable benefit, placebo or not. People want to make everything difficult, I guess.

Benefit: saves battery on OLED and goes easier on the OLEDs themselves

Re: Blue light filters don't work – controlling total luminance is a better bet

#155

Post by RupertSalt »

refulgentis wrote: post #134
aethrum wrote: post #9

They absolutely help my eyes not be so strained. If its placebo, its a working placebo. >Are people actually using Night Shift? >Aggravatingly, yes. What is the authors problem lol? It feels a lot better on eyeballs to use warm light things. Why does he care?

It is a placebo, it is an aesthetic thing. It is not something that helps anything at all physically. This was always well known. It didn't matter 5 years ago, 10 years ago, when OS added it. Easier to let it go than argue. But with HDR, it matters enormously people are well educated on this. Monitors are approximately light bulbs, and we've gone from staring into a 25W light bulb to a 200W one. (source: color scient…

username checks out

Re: Blue light filters don't work – controlling total luminance is a better bet

#156

Post by Groxx »

dinkelberg wrote: post #148
Groxx wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that'd give you 2.5mg, which is still almost 10x more than what I linked. it's possible to split and separate them enough of course, but beyond "roughly half" it gets rather difficult. I've considered getting the liquid ones and a micro-dropper for smaller doses (if they'd even be small enough, many combinations are not), but 0.3mg pills are rather convenient and worth the small amount of money for me.

Melatonin pills seem to have extremely bad quality control: "Melatonin content varied from an egregious −83% to +478% of labeled melatonin and 70% had melatonin concentration ≤ 10% of what was claimed. Worse yet, the content of melatonin between lots of the same product varied by as much as 465%. [...] The last disturbing finding was more than a quarter of melatonin products contained serotonin, some at potentially s…

I really wish they'd name-and-shame the brands. I don't see how hiding it helps encourage better behavior. If anything, it seems like they should be publishing legal ranges, and rewarding testing labs that catch things outside it by fining failures.

Re: Blue light filters don't work – controlling total luminance is a better bet

#157

Post by refulgentis »

RupertSalt wrote: post #155
refulgentis wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a placebo, it is an aesthetic thing. It is not something that helps anything at all physically. This was always well known. It didn't matter 5 years ago, 10 years ago, when OS added it. Easier to let it go than argue. But with HDR, it matters enormously people are well educated on this. Monitors are approximately light bulbs, and we've gone from staring into a 25W light bulb to a 200W one. (source: color scient…

username checks out

Hahaha in my 37 years I don't think anyones mentioned looking it up, cheers. I chose it when I was 8 by flipping open my mom's 2000 page tome of a Merriam Websters, closing my eyes, and putting my finger on the page.

Re: Blue light filters don't work – controlling total luminance is a better bet

#158

Post by m3047 »

debo_ wrote: post #51
m3047 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disturbed sleep / inability to settle / anxiety can have physical causes although these are poorly recognized / diagnosed by regular allopathic medicine where I live. Anecdata: 1) A good friend whose anxiety was largely alleviated (and sleep improved) by recognizing and treating their iron deficiency. 2) I have to (can't take the Western drug which was prescribed any more, and the Western doctors can't seem to bang t…

Which herbs do you take?

I would discuss this with you in some detail privately, with bona fides. You should consult with an herbalist. The herbalist I see doesn't mix themes / traditions. The one we've chosen, together, to work with is TCM. Inside of TCM there are "strategies" or themes. We tried a few, the gou teng + tian ma theme seems to work, minor changes happen seasonally. Underneath that are herbs addressing inflammation (ability to settle / get comfortable), immune system (allergies) balancing (post nasal drip / congestion / anxiety), circulatory health (e.g. cold feet), and tonifying some of the major metabolic / detoxifying organs (sweating / digestion). I have a renewed commitment to exercise and making sure I eat the right things for my body.

In the beginning I got hit with something and was misdiagnosed, and almost died; hypertension didn't fit the narrative so was initially ignored. By the way, when you don't sleep for three months it fucks you up. No attempt was ever made to even acknowledge that there might be a root cause for the hypertension. The hypertension drugs worked until they didn't, and they started gaslighting me about it. Bear in mind, in the context of the theme better sleep will help with hypertension (demonstrably true!).

You need to cultivate awareness as well as evidence-based skepticism for this to work. One of the herbs I take interacts with the beta blocker I still take, and if you weren't paying attention it could kill you (nobody told me, or the herbalist, about it). Some of the herbs are pricey, but none are over $80/pound. All in, it costs me about $100 / month, and two hours of my time every three days (to boil herbs). Quite frankly, if the pills work then just do that; but don't treat it as a "solve", get to work and identify some of the root causes and what can be done about it... before they stop working or start making you sick.

Re: Blue light filters don't work – controlling total luminance is a better bet

#159

Post by the_pwner224 »

baud9600 wrote: post #126

I added the “Noir” extension to mobile Safari, now I automatically get dark mode on all websites including Hacker News.

"Dark Reader" does the same thing on desktop Firefox/Chrome/etc. (& mobile Firefox, maybe also available on mobile Safari?).

Re: Blue light filters don't work – controlling total luminance is a better bet

#160

Post by baud9600 »

the_pwner224 wrote: post #159
baud9600 wrote: post #126

I added the “Noir” extension to mobile Safari, now I automatically get dark mode on all websites including Hacker News.

"Dark Reader" does the same thing on desktop Firefox/Chrome/etc. (& mobile Firefox, maybe also available on mobile Safari?).

Mobile Safari only does this for sites that implement dark themes (and when you have dark mode enabled in iOS). But many sites don’t have these themes. The Noir extension seems to fix the problem for now. There is a reader mode that can go dark but it’s manual, per article
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