Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

neuroai.science

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 257 posts

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

#31

Post by lowdest »

harrall wrote: post #18

I firmly believe this varies between people significantly. Blue light filters do not work for me because I fall asleep on command everyday all the time regardless if WW3 is outside. BUT it also seems the effect of poor sleep seems to be MUCH worse for me than other people. I go from extreme motor coordination to dropping cups in a span of 3 days of poor sleep. There’s a chemical called adenosine which accumulates ove…

>the effect of poor sleep seems to be MUCH worse for me than other people. I go from extreme motor coordination to dropping cups in a span of 3 days of poor sleep.

Are you sleeping enough? When I was getting too little sleep, averaging 5.5 hours per night, this described me well. A single sleep interruption could make me lose most of a day of work. I'm sleeping better and longer now, and it seems I'm more able to tolerate small interruptions.

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

#33

Post by pie_flavor »

If you aren't aware, your phone's screen can go much dimmer than the minimum brightness offered by the slider, if it supports HDR. There are apps that use an HDR screen overlay to lower brightness all the way down to the dimmest you can perceive. In my own experience, 'half' the brightness of 'minimum' brightness is plenty dark enough to not disturb sleeping at all if using my phone in bed.

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

#34

Post by tshaddox »

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

But have you considered that it feels better?

so do placebos

Not really. Most of the cultural notion about the remarkable effects of placebos came from flawed studies in the 1950s. As far as I can tell, the modern consensus is that there's no clinically significant placebo effect except for conditions that can only be measured by a subject self-reporting their own perception (like pain and fatigue).

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

#35

Post by lisper »

Night shift seems to have a very strong causal effect on my sleep cycles. Up until about ten years ago I was a night owl, rarely falling asleep before midnight and rarely waking up before 8. Then I started getting serious about light hygiene and using night shift and now I'm a serious day person, rarely staying awake after 11 and rarely waking up after 7. But the real clincher is that when I travel I don't change the time zone on my computer (because it screws up my calendar). But my sleep cycle continues to track my home time zone for a very long time. I life in California, but at the moment I'm in Hawaii. I've been here three weeks so far. At home I'd fall asleep around 11 and wake up around 7, but here I'm getting sleepy at 9 and waking up at 5.

My wife, on the other hand, is a hard-core night owl even with night shift. So apparently there is a lot of individual variation.

This article has inspired me to do a control experiment by switching night shift off. Check back here in a week or so for the results.

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

#36

Post by jack_pp »

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…

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.

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

#37

Post by bob1029 »

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_industry

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

#38

Post by ndkdofococofo »

lisper wrote: post #35

Night shift seems to have a very strong causal effect on my sleep cycles. Up until about ten years ago I was a night owl, rarely falling asleep before midnight and rarely waking up before 8. Then I started getting serious about light hygiene and using night shift and now I'm a serious day person, rarely staying awake after 11 and rarely waking up after 7. But the real clincher is that when I travel I don't change the…

[dead]

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

#39

Post by tartoran »

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 confirm that this helps me as well. Quite often I don't have any fancy filter, I'm permanently setting display/monitor to low temperature and my eyes/vision couldn't be happier. I don't even need darkmode, regular mode works just fine for me as long as blue light is toned down. Granted, I'm not doing any color correction or anything color sensitive work.

I used to have terrible headaches about 20 years ago when I started spending a lot of time in front of the screen. I went to an optometrist who tested my eyes and told me I could get low prescriptions (.5) but warned me that there's no way back and that many people are fine with my current vision, choosing not to get a prescription. Luckily I figured out that it was blue light that was bothering me and once I turned it down I haven't had any problems since. I'm in my mid 40s and my vision has naturally deteriorated a bit but I am still fine with no prescriptions.

And I don't believe this to be placebo. Every time I stare at a regular screen for longer than 5 minutes I get eye strain. At the same time I suspect this doesn't help everyone, but at least to me this is a great solution that still works.

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

#40

Post by SoftTalker »

Groxx wrote: post #27

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 Usefu…

So buy 5mg, and split the tablet in half.
Post reply on HN