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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

#161

Post by the_pwner224 »

baud9600 wrote: post #160
the_pwner224 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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

I see. Not a Safari user myself. On Firefox & Chrome Dark Reader can force its own dark theme even if the site doesn't provide one. Like Noir does on mobile Safari.

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

#162

Post by stuckonempty »

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…

Did you read the article? He points out “It’s possible that Night Shift does something, but the biggest study I could find of Night Shift mode (still a pretty small study) found little effect on sleep, so if there’s an effect, it must be tiny.” He links the exact type of observational study you asked for

Regardless the maximum possible effect will be constrained by the biology of the cells responsible for responding to blue light. Maybe knowledge of the biology is incomplete or flawed but to not use it to inform what’s possible seems foolish.

So what if it’s a placebo effect? Well some people are spending money and time investing in blue light filtering glasses and other solutions. It’s potentially snake oil and it could keep them from pursuing better solutions that would actually help them sleep

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

#163

Post by theshackleford »

thatcat wrote: post #82
thenewnewguy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I should have said something like "claiming software has a health benefit based on vibes/feels". I personally prefer the look of night/dark mode (or whatever you call it) in apps and the browser, but I'm not going to claim it makes me healthier or improves my sleep or whatever. If you just like how something looks, that's fine, but there's a difference between "I like how X looks" (subjective opinion) tha…

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

> you can feel your eye muscles release tension when you go from light to dark mode

For those like me, i'd like to add, this is not universally true. For some, dark mode will provide a significant reduction in comfort and increase in your fatigue and other symptoms.

Quite a few years back now, I started having significant problems with my eyesight that for the longest time I failed to match up to the switch to significant dark mode usage.

Turns out for many (though perhaps not all) with astigmatism, dark mode can induce issues that will wipe any potential positive impacts normal people experience. In my case, it gave me horrific blurryness/double vision that I thought was my eyes developing some new problem.

I'd tell the eye doctors "it seems to start fine then get worse as the day goes on!"

No, in fact what was actually happening, was in the afternoon my machines were scheduled to start shifting to dark mode. At which point the issues would start and my eyes would feel "heavy." It would fatigue my eyes so heavily that even not looking at displays would be affected.

I can not believe it took so long to connect the two, but I never even considered dark mode because it was so heavily pushed (along with reductions in brightness) as the answer to general monitor usage fatigue that I never remotely considered it may do the opposite, which to be fair, is on me.

Point is...if you have astigmatism, verify for yourself before rolling over to the full commit. Hopefully you are fine, but if not, you'll know why.

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

#164

Post by stuckonempty »

UlisesAC4 wrote: post #152
galangalalgol wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is great it works for you but hopefully you realize the weakness of anecdotal evidence when it comes to declaring something is universally effective.

Your n of 1 argument is the equivalent of “my grandpa smoked until he was 95 so smoking clearly can’t be bad for your health”.

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

#165

Post by stuckonempty »

pclowes wrote: post #32

You can just do things. Not everything needs a study, you don’t have to justify yourself to anyone! Try things, if you like them, do them! Try not living a neurotic “study” based life, I am trying it and its pretty great!

You can and should! Just don’t go justifying that your choices are rooted in science when they aren’t.

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

#166

Post by stuckonempty »

alejohausner wrote: post #66

I bought some amber glasses from blublocker.com[1], because they link to a research paper that actually measured how much of each wavelength their filters allow (as well as other brands). They're pretty dark, so you have to crank up the brightness on your screen, but I'm confident that I'm not getting ANY blue. 1: https://www.blublocker.com/blogs/news/what-blue-light-blocki...

Those glasses state that they are the only pair that “blocked 100% of harmful blue light in the 400-450 range”

But melanopsin contained in the cells that regulate circadian rhythms have an absorption spectrum extends to slightly beyond 540 nm (see the OP’s post). As the author says, “It’s not sensitive to blue, it’s sensitive to cyan (and blue and green).”

Those glasses probably do what they say in terms of wavelengths they filter, but they are only partially filtering out light relevant for circadian rhythm regulation and sleep.

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

#167

Post by thatcat »

IAmBroom wrote: post #88
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.

As someone more trained in science than software, the phrase "you can feel..." is suspicious, even if it's my own feelings. Not invalid; suspicious.

A phrase like I'm more trained in science is an appeal to authority, which is pretty suspicious, as is not trusting your own observations. How do you trust the data you collect?

feel in this case is a muscle contraction not psychological as you're suggesting

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

#168

Post by red75prime »

stuckonempty wrote: post #164
UlisesAC4 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is great it works for you but hopefully you realize the weakness of anecdotal evidence when it comes to declaring something is universally effective. Your n of 1 argument is the equivalent of “my grandpa smoked until he was 95 so smoking clearly can’t be bad for your health”.

It’s more like, "Some people have something going on that ameliorates the cardiovascular and cancer problems caused by smoking."

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

#169

Post by InMice »

schiffern wrote: post #136
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?

Aggravatingly, you can't set Night Shift to actually be on 24/7. It always has a "seam" where it fades off and then turns back on. One trick is to schedule this as a bedtime reminder to put down the phone for the night (phone fasting).

I kind of despise that part about nightshift, since i almost always like to keep it at medium anytime indoors and during winter. But in the later evening I want it max, and when i got to bed i want it even more. And ive always despised flux for that too. It's even worse since a lot of times i sleep in two phases each night and it doesnt allow to change the length of night time. So dumb.

In a way it's mildly frustrating, but also slightly insane to me that some of these things are so limiting in control. I cant just be given a simple on/off toggle? There is a project manager(s), paid millions collectively that sit in a room and decide "No, you cannot keep nightshift on, it will turn off at 7 AM every morning." Like... WTF.

Stuff like this just keeps on getting worse and worse - and more and more common.

Ive created shortcuts to jump directly to night settings and a shortcut to enable color filters. Still...

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

#170

Post by SubiculumCode »

I get frustrated with my dim and red shift app that is the default on my android phone for neither being very red nor very dim...but it's the type of app where every scammy body will put a red shift app whoch sucks up your location, contacts, etc, so I haven't changed.
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