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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

#21

Post by geoduck14 »

thenewnewguy wrote: post #17
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?

I'm not an MD or expert in this field enough to know if OP is right or wrong, but I think it's fairly reasonable to be irritated people are claiming software has a health benefit based on vibes/feels. I thought we as a society had moved on from superstition to evidence-based medicine, but in this very post there are plenty of replies countering OP's scientific analysis and data with anecdotes (which is disappointing…

>I think it's fairly reasonable to be irritated people are pushing software based on vibes/feels.

You are going to HATE to find out about night-mode in the browser

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

#22

Post by [deleted] »

thenewnewguy wrote: post #17
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?

I'm not an MD or expert in this field enough to know if OP is right or wrong, but I think it's fairly reasonable to be irritated people are claiming software has a health benefit based on vibes/feels. I thought we as a society had moved on from superstition to evidence-based medicine, but in this very post there are plenty of replies countering OP's scientific analysis and data with anecdotes (which is disappointing…

[deleted]

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

#23

Post by thenewnewguy »

geoduck14 wrote: post #21
thenewnewguy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an MD or expert in this field enough to know if OP is right or wrong, but I think it's fairly reasonable to be irritated people are claiming software has a health benefit based on vibes/feels. I thought we as a society had moved on from superstition to evidence-based medicine, but in this very post there are plenty of replies countering OP's scientific analysis and data with anecdotes (which is disappointing…

>I think it's fairly reasonable to be irritated people are pushing software based on vibes/feels. You are going to HATE to find out about night-mode in the browser

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) than "X helps me sleep better" (difficult to prove but objectively true or false).

Edit: Changed this in my original message as it seems multiple people got confused by my prior poor wording.

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

#24

Post by snet0 »

stronglikedan wrote: post #4
snet0 wrote: post #2

But have you considered that it feels better?

so do placebos

So what? If I could take a sugar pill that guaranteed I feel comfier looking at my screen, nobody can tell me it "doesn't work". I'm not trying to optimise my life, I'm trying to have my eyes feel better.

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

#25

Post by ctbeiser »

It seems pretty clear in the OP that headline is misleading—they do work, just not as well as he would like. I think that a 50% cut in light emission is pretty good—and you can stack that with the other interventions listed, like auto-dark mode and reducing light in your room.

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

#27

Post by Groxx »

So the main claim presented here is that reducing blue reduces total "light" (lumens? watts?) by 50% (totally believable), and that reduction in light is all that matters for sleep?

That seems reasonable. The pseudoscience wankery that the fad has brought bothers me a lot too.

... but I'm not sure that's much of an argument against blue light filters, aside from color complaints. That seems to support that it's Useful and Good and is Achieving Its Intended Goal. It's reducing total luminance, because people prefer it over reducing screen brightness overall. I sure as heck do anyway (as night shift modes, they're a more comprehensive option than dark mode), though I think I'll experiment with just reducing brightness a bit.

----

For melatonin in particular, fully agreed. The recent trend of "can't even get 10mg is appearing regularly" in the USA is mind-boggling to me. AFAICT it's exclusively because it's a "supplement" and therefore practically unregulated, and these companies don't give a shit about anyone they harm, just profit.

Start with something like https://a.co/d/0dISg7oa (0.3mg, this is what I personally use) and go up from there, slowly.

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

#28

Post by robinsonb5 »

KaiserPro wrote: post #19
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?

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.

If you wait long enough cataracts will give you that for free.

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

#29

Post by m3047 »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #5
debo_ wrote: post #3

> Everybody wants better sleep Bro, as someone who had brutal insomnia for a couple of years and now sleeps "normally" for whatever that means, I can tell you that I don't think about my sleep quality at all. I'm happy to be sleeping. If you too sleep "ok" for whatever that means, maybe stop worrying about optimizing it and go do something else less insane.

What did you do to tackle your insomnia?

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 the rocks together) take herbs for my hypertension but as opposed to the side effects I was experiencing from the drug I joke that all of the "side effects" from the herbs are good, they're targeting imbalances which were not recognized / treated previously and lo and behold I settle and sleep better... which helps reduce the blood pressure.

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