18 ms·

Regarding the quoted e-book study: > Third, in the present study, the LE-eBook was set to maximum brightness throughout the 4-h reading session, whereas, by co

Regarding the quoted e-book study: > Third, in the present study, the LE-eBook was set to maximum brightness throughout the 4-h reading session, whereas, by comparison, the print-book condition consisted of reflected exposure to very dim light. Yeah, max brightness is probably going to make an impact. I bet if you were in a room with a bright light reading a book, with an equivalent amount of lumens going into your eyeballs, you'd probably have a tough time sleeping. This study seems like it was set up to generate a certain set of results. I wonder how it would look if the quantity of light was controlled for. Additionally, the comparisons to the incandescent spectrum and the freaking out about the blue peaks (which seem pretty small) was over the top. The incandescent spectrum contains blue, and the "peak" of the other spectra would contain an equivalent integral of blue light as compared to a slightly brighter incandescent light. Just turn the lights down low at night and get some warm spectrum bulbs and you'll be okay.

behringer 4y ago
But then you can't sell blue blocking products.
UberFly 4y ago
Yes, thank you for being rational. "Yorg, turn down the campfire or we'll never get to sleep!"
- nindalf 4y ago
  Yorg need to finish treatise on wheel. Barg turn other side.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  Sleeping next to a bright fire though, is way more easy and cozy, than sleeping next to a bright LED flashlight. The red light (and sound) of the fire has a very soothing effect, which has probably something to do that our ancestors slept next to it since ~1 mio years. (it is still fun, just don't use a new sleeping bag, as it might get holes)
  - ComodoHacker 4y ago
    >something to do that our ancestors slept next to it since ~1 mio years fire == safety
- rob74 4y ago
  I'm glad our ancestors were less worried about the quality of their sleep and more worried about what beasts might attack them during the night and using fire to keep them away, otherwise we may not be sitting here discussing how LED lighting impacts sleep quality...
- DarkNova6 4y ago
  actually, infrared light from campfires improves sleeping quality because it triggers melatonin production in the brain. In contrast, blue bright light triggers cortisol production.
bschne 4y ago
Wasn't that also the study where the ebook condition used an iPad, not an e-Ink reader?
- iforgotpassword 4y ago
  What would be the point otherwise?
- balfirevic 4y ago
  Yes, the study [0] used iPads (on maximum brightness). Some releveant quotes: "The randomized, crossover protocol design consisted of two conditions: (i) reading an LE-eBook (iPad; Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA) in otherwise very dim room light for ∼4 h before bedtime for five consecutive evenings, and (ii) reading printed books in the same very dim room light for ∼4 h before bedtime for five consecutive evenings." "Third, in the present study, the LE-eBook was set to maximum brightness throughout the 4-h reading session, whereas, by comparison, the print-book condition consisted of reflected exposure to very dim light." "Lastly, although the short-wavelength light from the LEeBook may have been responsible for the effects reported here, this study did not include a light-emitting device with longer wavelength for comparison, so our findings may be due to the difference in irradiance level rather than spectral composition." [0] - https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1418490112 https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1418490112
  - steve1977 4y ago
    My eyes would bleed after looking at an iPad with maximum brightness for 4 hours.
forgetfreeman 4y ago
And yet there are all those other datapoints that also support the central thesis that you aren't cherry-picking here. So perhaps the author's point stands?
- rudolph9 4y ago
  I think OPs point is people tendency to use LEDs in way that is bad for melatonin production is not the same as LEDs being inherently bad for melatonin production as the title suggests. Many LEDs have fine color spectrum and brightness setting and people should take those capabilities into mind when purchasing, especially for lights they will be using in the evening. Personally I’ve invested in hue lights and have them configured to dim and redshift as bedtime approaches.
  - forgetfreeman 4y ago
    Right but this is a false dichotomy, LEDs are both inherently bad AND put to uses that enhances their detrimental characteristics.
    - ilyt 4y ago
      Uh, just no. LED lighting have modes of working that can be bad. You just need to be way more picky and knowledgable with LED lights which is hard for most customers, vs "just buy an incandesent bulb"
      - forgetfreeman 4y ago
        Nice "well actually" there. So is the proposal consumers perform their own spectrographic tests before making a purchase or can we just go with "leds are bad" given the overwhelming majority of the products available on the market demonstrate harmful characteristics with no clear way of discerning which are the outliers at time of purchase?
        ilyt 4y ago
steve1977 4y ago
This. If I set my reading devices to maximum brightness, I can basically use them as flashlights.
- soco 4y ago
  When you wake up at night in pitch dark, a Kindle does already a perfect job to help navigate around - and won't hurt your eyes either.
wonnage 4y ago
I’m really turned off by how there’s zero critical consideration of their quoted research. They’re just hammering you over the head with quantity. Sleep is like diet where there’s virtually no scientific consensus on even the most basic things. Plenty of studies which conclude “more research is needed”, though. That leaves people free to cherry pick and go deep into the weeds with crazy the-world-is-falling theories. Yellow light may be worse than blue: https://time.com/5752454/blue-light-sleep/ https://time.com/5752454/blue-light-sleep/ Phone before bed can be good for you: https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/screen-time-media-use-sleep-quality/ https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/screen-time-media-use-... Night Shift has no effect on sleep: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352721821000607 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S23527...
- moremetadata 4y ago
  >’m really turned off by how there’s zero critical consideration of their quoted research I can take a variety of stimulants which would normally keep me up all night, but 5mg of Vit K2-MK4 removes enough of the calcium from my bloodstream so that it can't amplify the effects of the catecholamines and I'm asleep within 30mins, its actually better than taking melatonin or anti-histamines. I've been more alert and observant as a car passenger whilst on 2 NHS prescribed benzodiazepines than the person driving the car! I think sometimes its a state of mind which makes its hard to sleep.
  - neodon 4y ago
    That's interesting! Can you provide some links to evidence regarding Vit K2-MK4, its effects on calcium in the bloodstream, and how that inhibits the effects of catecholamines and leads to sleep induction?
    - moremetadata 4y ago
      Vit K2-MK4 Osteoblasts better than Vit K1 in my experience, ie 50mg of K1 is nowhere near as good as 5mg K2-MK4. Calcium amplifies the effects of the catecholamines which probably explains why tea drinkers prefer hard water. Military also give out tea, during and after a exercise. High Vit A and Vit D can also lead to hypercalcemia which makes you feel good. https://scholar.google.com/ https://scholar.google.com/ Remember Thomas Pynchon and be mindful of the fact that search engines wont always give you the studies you are looking for, so you have to go back and perform the same search's weeks and months later.
zagrebian 4y ago
Reminds me of that joke about a study where they shoved 20 joints into a chimpanzee’s mouth and then proclaimed that marijuana is very bad.
londons_explore 4y ago
I am disappointed that many phones/tablets don't go very dim. From flagship to cheap, it seems that if you're in a pitch black room and check the time on your phone, the light will illuminate the whole room, even on the dimmest setting. I actually modded my phone by putting a resistor in the LED backlight circuit, which divided the brightness by 1000 - and it was still plenty bright at night (human eyes are logarithmic, so dividing the brightness by 1000 doesn't have as much visual impact as you'd expect).
- greggsy 4y ago
  It’s possible to set a custom filter in iOS, which reduces the brightness even further, but only in one colour, ie red. Better than nothing. The main issue i think is that backlights tend to flicker at low brightness.
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    They do... But thats down to poor design decisions. Human vision extends from about 10^5 cd/m^2 to 10^-5 cd/m^2 [1]. Typical backlights use something like PWM to modulate the brightness. That means you need to be able to scale your backlight by a factor of 10^10 to cover the whole human vision range. And if your CPU runs at 1 Ghz (10^9), then at the dimmest setting then even being on for a single clock cycle would be a flash every 10 seconds - clearly unacceptable, and even then, few backlight controllers could handle a 1 nanosecond pulse! The fix is to use PWM combined with settable 'modes'. The modes could be 'bright light' (using all the backlight LED's, perhaps a few watts total), and a dim light mode, which uses just one LED through a high value resistor, of just a few tens of microwatts. Your two modes have a factor of 10^5 between them in brightness. So now the PWM on your CPU only needs a resolution of 10^5, which it can do. [1]: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Approximate-luminance-ranges-of-human-vision-and-corresponding-photoreceptors_fig2_50297383 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Approximate-luminance-ra...
    - formerly_proven 4y ago
      Compare your hypothetical 10^10 range to the range offered by typical LCD monitors, where maximum is in the 300...400 cd/m² range and a minimum brightness less than 30 cd/m² is "outstanding". I.e. a 1:10 range.
mft_ 4y ago
The study also didn't use a typical eBook reader - it used an iPad - set (as you say) to a high brightness level.
- ilyt 4y ago
  Yeah my kindle have perfectly fine backlight range for night reading.
jve 4y ago
> “Is it the light, or is it the mental activity from the screen?” This study attempts to answer... If that was the aim of the study, then it could be reasonable to max brightness vs paper to distinguish between light/brain activity.
manmal 4y ago
Dimmable LEDs usually dim via PWM, which might in itself pose a problem for brain health. Best to buy bulbs that are dimmed out of the box.

behringer 4y ago

But then you can't sell blue blocking products.

UberFly 4y ago

Yes, thank you for being rational. "Yorg, turn down the campfire or we'll never get to sleep!"

nindalf 4y ago
Yorg need to finish treatise on wheel. Barg turn other side.
hutzlibu 4y ago
Sleeping next to a bright fire though, is way more easy and cozy, than sleeping next to a bright LED flashlight. The red light (and sound) of the fire has a very soothing effect, which has probably something to do that our ancestors slept next to it since ~1 mio years. (it is still fun, just don't use a new sleeping bag, as it might get holes)
- ComodoHacker 4y ago
  >something to do that our ancestors slept next to it since ~1 mio years fire == safety
rob74 4y ago
I'm glad our ancestors were less worried about the quality of their sleep and more worried about what beasts might attack them during the night and using fire to keep them away, otherwise we may not be sitting here discussing how LED lighting impacts sleep quality...
DarkNova6 4y ago
actually, infrared light from campfires improves sleeping quality because it triggers melatonin production in the brain. In contrast, blue bright light triggers cortisol production.

bschne 4y ago

Wasn't that also the study where the ebook condition used an iPad, not an e-Ink reader?

iforgotpassword 4y ago
What would be the point otherwise?
balfirevic 4y ago
Yes, the study [0] used iPads (on maximum brightness). Some releveant quotes: "The randomized, crossover protocol design consisted of two conditions: (i) reading an LE-eBook (iPad; Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA) in otherwise very dim room light for ∼4 h before bedtime for five consecutive evenings, and (ii) reading printed books in the same very dim room light for ∼4 h before bedtime for five consecutive evenings." "Third, in the present study, the LE-eBook was set to maximum brightness throughout the 4-h reading session, whereas, by comparison, the print-book condition consisted of reflected exposure to very dim light." "Lastly, although the short-wavelength light from the LEeBook may have been responsible for the effects reported here, this study did not include a light-emitting device with longer wavelength for comparison, so our findings may be due to the difference in irradiance level rather than spectral composition." [0] - https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1418490112 https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1418490112
- steve1977 4y ago
  My eyes would bleed after looking at an iPad with maximum brightness for 4 hours.

forgetfreeman 4y ago

And yet there are all those other datapoints that also support the central thesis that you aren't cherry-picking here. So perhaps the author's point stands?

rudolph9 4y ago
I think OPs point is people tendency to use LEDs in way that is bad for melatonin production is not the same as LEDs being inherently bad for melatonin production as the title suggests. Many LEDs have fine color spectrum and brightness setting and people should take those capabilities into mind when purchasing, especially for lights they will be using in the evening. Personally I’ve invested in hue lights and have them configured to dim and redshift as bedtime approaches.
- forgetfreeman 4y ago
  Right but this is a false dichotomy, LEDs are both inherently bad AND put to uses that enhances their detrimental characteristics.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    Uh, just no. LED lighting have modes of working that can be bad. You just need to be way more picky and knowledgable with LED lights which is hard for most customers, vs "just buy an incandesent bulb"
    - forgetfreeman 4y ago
      Nice "well actually" there. So is the proposal consumers perform their own spectrographic tests before making a purchase or can we just go with "leds are bad" given the overwhelming majority of the products available on the market demonstrate harmful characteristics with no clear way of discerning which are the outliers at time of purchase?
      - ilyt 4y ago

steve1977 4y ago

This. If I set my reading devices to maximum brightness, I can basically use them as flashlights.

soco 4y ago
When you wake up at night in pitch dark, a Kindle does already a perfect job to help navigate around - and won't hurt your eyes either.

wonnage 4y ago

I’m really turned off by how there’s zero critical consideration of their quoted research. They’re just hammering you over the head with quantity. Sleep is like diet where there’s virtually no scientific consensus on even the most basic things. Plenty of studies which conclude “more research is needed”, though. That leaves people free to cherry pick and go deep into the weeds with crazy the-world-is-falling theories. Yellow light may be worse than blue: https://time.com/5752454/blue-light-sleep/ https://time.com/5752454/blue-light-sleep/ Phone before bed can be good for you: https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/screen-time-media-use-sleep-quality/ https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/screen-time-media-use-... Night Shift has no effect on sleep: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352721821000607 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S23527...

moremetadata 4y ago
>’m really turned off by how there’s zero critical consideration of their quoted research I can take a variety of stimulants which would normally keep me up all night, but 5mg of Vit K2-MK4 removes enough of the calcium from my bloodstream so that it can't amplify the effects of the catecholamines and I'm asleep within 30mins, its actually better than taking melatonin or anti-histamines. I've been more alert and observant as a car passenger whilst on 2 NHS prescribed benzodiazepines than the person driving the car! I think sometimes its a state of mind which makes its hard to sleep.
- neodon 4y ago
  That's interesting! Can you provide some links to evidence regarding Vit K2-MK4, its effects on calcium in the bloodstream, and how that inhibits the effects of catecholamines and leads to sleep induction?
  - moremetadata 4y ago
    Vit K2-MK4 Osteoblasts better than Vit K1 in my experience, ie 50mg of K1 is nowhere near as good as 5mg K2-MK4. Calcium amplifies the effects of the catecholamines which probably explains why tea drinkers prefer hard water. Military also give out tea, during and after a exercise. High Vit A and Vit D can also lead to hypercalcemia which makes you feel good. https://scholar.google.com/ https://scholar.google.com/ Remember Thomas Pynchon and be mindful of the fact that search engines wont always give you the studies you are looking for, so you have to go back and perform the same search's weeks and months later.

zagrebian 4y ago

Reminds me of that joke about a study where they shoved 20 joints into a chimpanzee’s mouth and then proclaimed that marijuana is very bad.

londons_explore 4y ago

I am disappointed that many phones/tablets don't go very dim. From flagship to cheap, it seems that if you're in a pitch black room and check the time on your phone, the light will illuminate the whole room, even on the dimmest setting. I actually modded my phone by putting a resistor in the LED backlight circuit, which divided the brightness by 1000 - and it was still plenty bright at night (human eyes are logarithmic, so dividing the brightness by 1000 doesn't have as much visual impact as you'd expect).

greggsy 4y ago
It’s possible to set a custom filter in iOS, which reduces the brightness even further, but only in one colour, ie red. Better than nothing. The main issue i think is that backlights tend to flicker at low brightness.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  They do... But thats down to poor design decisions. Human vision extends from about 10^5 cd/m^2 to 10^-5 cd/m^2 [1]. Typical backlights use something like PWM to modulate the brightness. That means you need to be able to scale your backlight by a factor of 10^10 to cover the whole human vision range. And if your CPU runs at 1 Ghz (10^9), then at the dimmest setting then even being on for a single clock cycle would be a flash every 10 seconds - clearly unacceptable, and even then, few backlight controllers could handle a 1 nanosecond pulse! The fix is to use PWM combined with settable 'modes'. The modes could be 'bright light' (using all the backlight LED's, perhaps a few watts total), and a dim light mode, which uses just one LED through a high value resistor, of just a few tens of microwatts. Your two modes have a factor of 10^5 between them in brightness. So now the PWM on your CPU only needs a resolution of 10^5, which it can do. [1]: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Approximate-luminance-ranges-of-human-vision-and-corresponding-photoreceptors_fig2_50297383 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Approximate-luminance-ra...
  - formerly_proven 4y ago
    Compare your hypothetical 10^10 range to the range offered by typical LCD monitors, where maximum is in the 300...400 cd/m² range and a minimum brightness less than 30 cd/m² is "outstanding". I.e. a 1:10 range.

mft_ 4y ago

The study also didn't use a typical eBook reader - it used an iPad - set (as you say) to a high brightness level.

ilyt 4y ago
Yeah my kindle have perfectly fine backlight range for night reading.

jve 4y ago

> “Is it the light, or is it the mental activity from the screen?” This study attempts to answer... If that was the aim of the study, then it could be reasonable to max brightness vs paper to distinguish between light/brain activity.

manmal 4y ago

Dimmable LEDs usually dim via PWM, which might in itself pose a problem for brain health. Best to buy bulbs that are dimmed out of the box.