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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

#211

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

energy123 wrote: post #185
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…

Blue light blockers are a scam that was created when some circadian rhythm research went viral (in a highly misrepresented way) online a few years ago. It's a stunt to make some quick cash from unwitting buyers.

"It's a stunt to make some quick cash from unwitting buyers."

I've used a number of blue light filters, and I've never paid for them.

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

#212

Post by xmodem »

> Unless your strategy is to create a photo-lab-like screen in pure black and red, or wear deep-red-tinted glasses, it’s unlikely that a pure colorshift strategy will cut out that big of a chunk of the spectrum.

The writer is dismissing this out of hand but to me this sounds like a great idea.

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

#213

Post by pvtmert »

My overall take (elephant in the room): Blue light filters don't work, it depends on what you do & how you do it.

For example, most people keep watching/scrolling Instagram Reels and TikTok videos. They keep stimulating the brain constantly, not just at electrical level but also in emotional/chemical level too.

I have seen people who are addicted and cannot get rid of the addiction. This is not only the dopamine-boost, it has deeper connections of neuro-chemical stimuli. Just observe around you; people pick up their phone to directly open Insta/TikTok, start scrolling right away every 5-10 seconds. (watching stories included too)

This is to some extent that when you mention even the possibility of such addiction and abnormal behavior, one gets outright resistance and denial of addiction itself. Much like substance abuse...

My point is, majority of the population watches/scrolls these, needing 10g of melatonin to fall asleep.

Obviously if I get engaged in an interesting stuff continuously, the existence of blue light does not matter that much. It matters if/when I am reading a novel which is in a mediocre chapter where nothing that interesting going on. The existence of blue-light or lack thereof may tip the scale at that point.

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

#214

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

guelo wrote: post #171
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…

But you could make your same argument for the pro blue light filter side.

Sure, and I'd write the same thing if we were talking about a blog post that said everyone should use blue light filters because of some plausible physical mechanism.

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

#215

Post by wtetzner »

simoncion wrote: post #188
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?

> What is the authors problem lol? I'm not the author, but every time I've seen Night Shift (and things like it) being used, they've done a grand job of royally fucking up the colors of whatever's on screen. > It feels a lot better on eyeballs to use warm light things. That's, like, your opinion, man. The lights in my house are all 5000K lights, and I love it. I expect you'd get way more out of reducing the brightnes…

> they've done a grand job of royally fucking up the colors of whatever's on screen.

Pretty sure that's the point?

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

#216

Post by rcore »

> That’s all great, but there are websites that still don’t have dark modes. It doesn’t make any sense in 2026 that Gmail doesn’t have a dark mode. If the activity you’re doing most at night is reading email, you might consider an alternative email client.

This reads funny on a website that does not respect your device's dark mode. Guess I'll look for an alternative blog.

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

#217

Post by wtetzner »

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.

Regardless of "health benefits", the phrase "you can feel" seems pretty relevant when it comes to what someone finds comfortable.

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

#218

Post by wtetzner »

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…

> It is not something that helps anything at all physically.

That's a pretty strong claim to make.

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

#219

Post by wtetzner »

root_axis wrote: post #135
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!

Neurotic is bad by definition, but using studies to inform your habits seems like a wise thing to do. Obviously you shouldn't follow studies blindly, especially because many studies are poorly conducted and do not replicate, but in general, we know that just following your gut is suboptimal and sometimes dangerous in cases when studies give us clear information.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be easy to understand what studies are actually demonstrating, based on how often you see people making giant leaps to conclusions that don't really follow from study results.

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

#220

Post by jedberg »

>It doesn’t make any sense in 2026 that Gmail doesn’t have a dark mode

I've been using dark mode on gmail for years, not sure what OP is talking about here.

But also, my sleep quality got much better when I turned on f.lux. And it got better still when I added a second light to my bathroom that can do a 1800K super-warm light (that's also very dim).

And as an added pro-tip, I use f.lux during the day to cut my color temp to 5900K (instead of the default 6500K) and it made a huge difference for how long I could work without getting tired eyes.

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