Live data from Hacker News

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

neuroai.science

201–210 of 257 posts

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

#201
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Significant outdoor exposure is essentially the only relevant factor for preventing myopia. I would be interested in seeing any studies that showed any meaningful relevance of low light reading, while controlling for time spent outdoors.

Main factor is genetics. I was gaming on a blurry CRT and reading on a dim light while hardly ever going outside during my teens and I only have light myopia on one eye. I don't know if it has ever been studied, but I suspect eye socket morphology from my own family anecdata. large eyes + small socket = squashed eyes. It could be different genetic factors for different populations too.

[deleted]

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

#202
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Significant outdoor exposure is essentially the only relevant factor for preventing myopia. I would be interested in seeing any studies that showed any meaningful relevance of low light reading, while controlling for time spent outdoors.

Main factor is genetics. I was gaming on a blurry CRT and reading on a dim light while hardly ever going outside during my teens and I only have light myopia on one eye. I don't know if it has ever been studied, but I suspect eye socket morphology from my own family anecdata. large eyes + small socket = squashed eyes. It could be different genetic factors for different populations too.

I agree that genetics can protect you from developing myopia. For people who are genetically susceptible, outdoor exposure is critically important. Most people won't know which group their children are in.

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

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the premise of the idea is wrong, as evenings are either blue from the blue sky, or white from the clouds. It takes exceptional circumstances to have a reddish evening, and even then it's just around the sunset. I guess that it may help people with undercorrected myopia due to the chromatic aberration, but, I don't know.

It is indeed about the sunset and especially the last phases of it. It's also why red light is recommended for night feeding when breastfeeding. Works for me, both reducing the blue light and worked for my baby, too, using only deep orange and red light of a cheap LED color change lamp. Apparently works for many, since red nursing lights are suddenly sold everywhere.

The sunset and also fires. Humans have been making fires for a million years and in addition to allowing us to evolve much smaller guts they've also had time exert pressure on our behavior.

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

#204
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!

Yep. This attitude is utterly pervasive. We may as well just give up and start saying “science says…”, the way some people, especially some people here, seem to misunderstand what role studies play, what their limitations are, etc.

Imagine if you have a rare genetic mutation that causes Night Shift to be extremely, extremely effective, and you don’t even try to use it because A Study Didn’t Tell You To.

You are indeed allowed to just…try things and see for yourself, especially such ostensibly low-risk things like this. The literature is not a bible.

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

#206
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?

Well he goes on to rant about how it changes the colors displayed by the monitor, so a publisher cannot show the intended color (cyan in the example).

Except he completely ignores that’s actually expected for a cyan object to be duller at night: it’s the albedo of the object and the perceived color will dramatically changed between daylight and nightlight. So the screen is more contextually correct by toning down cyan, and the colors we perceive will match (and reinforce) the circadian rythm: the user will recognize cyan.

Of course, doing color-sensitive work should not be done with such filters.

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

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the premise of the idea is wrong, as evenings are either blue from the blue sky, or white from the clouds. It takes exceptional circumstances to have a reddish evening, and even then it's just around the sunset. I guess that it may help people with undercorrected myopia due to the chromatic aberration, but, I don't know.

It is indeed about the sunset and especially the last phases of it. It's also why red light is recommended for night feeding when breastfeeding. Works for me, both reducing the blue light and worked for my baby, too, using only deep orange and red light of a cheap LED color change lamp. Apparently works for many, since red nursing lights are suddenly sold everywhere.

I thought red light was recommended for nighttime because it doesn’t interfere with natural night vision.

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

#208
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it superstition to deduce that I get gassy after eating beans? I need a scientific study to tell me this? Same for if a screen hurts my eyes (not long term, like truly my eyes hurt) when using bright white colors at night.

Yes, actually, if someone has direct scientific evidence contrary to the claim (I doubt such evidence exists for your first example as to the best of my knowledge the relationship between beans and gastrointestinal changes is well understood). Your eyes could hurt for a variety of reasons - brightness, too long screen time, being dry for external reasons, etc. Most humans are poor at identifying the cause of one-off…

I have direct scientific evidence contrary to the claim that parachutes improve the safety of jumping out of airplanes.

https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094

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

#209
Interesting take for me is that melatonin (over-)usage can be severely harmful for the individuals.

  ... over-the-counter melatonin supplements can contain anywhere between 10 to 30 times as much melatonin as is optimal to maintain circadian hygiene. If you have ever taken melatonin and got immediately knocked out cold, had weird dreams and woke up in the middle of the night sweaty or shivering, you likely took too much—which, to be clear, is not your fault, it’s the default in the US and Canada. The mega-doses in stores serve as hypnotics (punches you to sleep), but wreck sleep architecture. The right dose is ~0.3 mg, which is hard to find in pharmacies but can be found online.

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

#210

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”.

You're right, it's not valid to make any broader conclusions from an anecdote. But it's about just as valid as the author making conclusions based solely on physical "this is what I should expect to happen" hypotheses.

More importantly, as an individual, the only thing that counts is when the n of 1 is you. As another commenter said, you don't need to live your life by studies. It's not like there is much expense or risk in trying a screen reddener, so try it out, and if it works for you, great - it's bizarre that the author thinks it is "aggravating" that a lot of people use things that they say work for them.

Post reply on HN