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from the put-the-phone-down-and-snuggle dept.
As the numbers of smartphones and other personal electronic devices have risen, so has the prevalence of insomnia and sleep deprivation. And though these two things generally correlate, there hasn't been good data on how often these devices are being used, by whom, and the relationship between their use and the incidence of sleep disorders. A group of researchers from the University of California San Francisco set out to collect this data with the help of people enrolled in the Health eHeart Study. Their results are presented in a paper published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
Total screen-time over 30 days was a median 38.4 hours (IQR 21.4 to 61.3) and average screen-time over 30 days was a median 3.7 minutes per hour (IQR 2.2 to 5.5). Younger age, self-reported race/ethnicity of Black and "Other" were associated with longer average screen-time after adjustment for potential confounders. Longer average screen-time was associated with shorter sleep duration and worse sleep-efficiency. Longer average screen-times during bedtime and the sleeping period were associated with poor sleep quality, decreased sleep efficiency, and longer sleep onset latency.
A total of 653 participants ran a smartphone app that monitored the number of minutes in each hour the screen was on. The total and average screentime were computed, as well as the average screen-time during self-reported bedtime hours and sleeping periods. Participant demographics, medical information, and sleep habits were obtained using a survey. What is notable about this work is that this is the first large study that directly measured screentime usage and compared it to demographics and medical information; however, sleep habits were measured only once using a survey.
Their conclusions, as summed up in the paper:
These findings on actual smartphone screen-time build upon prior work based on self-report and confirm that adults spend a substantial amount of time using their smartphones. Screen-time differs across age and race, but is similar across socio-economic strata suggesting that cultural factors may drive smartphone use. Screen-time is associated with poor sleep. These findings cannot support conclusions on causation. Effect-cause remains a possibility: poor sleep may lead to increased screen-time. However, exposure to smartphone screens, particularly around bedtime, may negatively impact sleep.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 15 2016, @02:57PM
There seems to be a huge focus on screens and photons, as if the photons from the LED in my phablet are different than the LED photons reflected from a paper book or the LED photons from my TV, monitor, the LED photons that come from all my lightbulbs... I still have legacy filament light bulbs in my car's headlights which I guess is good? Or maybe not?
How does my eye cell know the LED photons come from my phone as opposed to my overhead lamp as opposed to my TV as opposed to a monitor? It borders on astrological levels of logic...
I suspect the LEDs come from the same Chinese factory before they get soldered into light bulbs vs TV vs phone illumination.
First of all southerners freak out about lighting vs sleep but I've survived many dozens of summers in the North where its perfectly normal to go to sleep when the sun is up and wake up hours after sunrise. Its only really dark for a couple hours around midnight. Its simply not an issue in practice. If you believe gulf coast residents that is physically impossible, but they claim its impossible to drive in snow, so what do they know? I think we might be trying to run a scientific study on the equivalent of the legendary topic of "fan death" here.
The next point is "phone content" is designed psychologically to be highly addicting in order to sell advertising. It would be fascinating to compare clickbait addition victims and social media addicted lurkers and pr0n viewers, to kindle app ebook readers. There is a difference in excitement between browsing pr0n, lurking social media, vs reading a book about the Clojure programming language. Its no different than putting kids to bed, if you try to play soccer in the back yard or maybe Mario Kart for an hour right before bedtime, they just aren't sleeping for an hour or two. On the other hand get a nice exciting game of checkers going or watch edutainment cartoons for an hour and they'll fall asleep on the couch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @03:58PM
In their "what we want to study next", they mention wanting to change the app to monitor the activity to address your content questions.
Regarding the light, these screens emit relatively more blue light than your regular incandescent bulb, and some research suggests that light on the blue end of the spectrum is more disruptive to circadian rhythms and such. Personally I do not like the "natural daylight" spectrum bulbs that are much bluer than the "soft white" ones. I find them very uncomfortable to look at, and I want to shoot out those blue-heavy headlights that people put on their cars. Looking at "daylight" spectrum light when everything else around is dark is very disruptive.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 15 2016, @04:39PM
Every time I drive back from Long Island at night and one of those cars rolls up behind me, I swear I'm going to wire a couple of those headlights, rear-facing, into the cargo area of my car that will throw back at them the same level of lumens they're blinding me with. If the government thinks it's safe for them to blind others that way, then it ought to be safe for the rest of us to return the favor.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday November 15 2016, @05:57PM
> I want to shoot out those blue-heavy headlights that people put on their cars
If they also blink, you may want to drop the gun.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @05:56PM
There seems to be a huge focus on screens and photons, as if the photons from the LED in my phablet are different than the LED photons reflected from a paper book or the LED photons from my TV, monitor, the LED photons that come from all my lightbulbs...
Wavelength matters, perceived color does not. So getting a perceptually-equivalent "white" from any sort of RGB mixing (including basically all computer displays, whether OLED, LCD, or even CRT), vs. from a black-body radiator (incandescent bulb), vs. from a narrow-band blue LED with phosphor conversion (most LED lighting), could all have different effects.
It's not clear how various RGB emitters vs blue+phosphor "white" LEDs compare, but either of these emits much more blue light than an incandescent at the same color temperature. And since screens are all evil RGB, while some lighting is evil phosphor-based LED and some isn't, it's understandable that they jump on screens over lighting.
I still have legacy filament light bulbs in my car's headlights which I guess is good? Or maybe not?
The first concern with headlights shouldn't be their effect on sleep patterns, but their effect on other road users. If your car came with halogen bulbs, sticking with them is probably good -- it's really very hard to go from halogen to HID, in the same optics, and not get unacceptable levels of glare above the cutoff. (If you have projector optics, and the original halogen had an axial filament, it's just about doable -- but you will need to modify the internals, and will need proper photometric equipment to tell when you've got it right. With reflector optics and/or transverse filament bulbs, it's not happening.) Switching to HID without blinding other road users usually requires swapping complete headlight assemblies (if that model was also available in a pricier trim package with HIDs), or dismantling your headlights and transplanting projector units from another car with factory HIDs. But even if they actually conform to the relevant photometric standards, it's still "illegal".
(Legality with regard to headlights is a complicated thing -- federal standards exist, and it's a federal crime for a manufacturer to sell a vehicle with "illegal" headlights, or for a mechanic or anyone else to install nonconforming headlights, or modify headlights to make them nonconforming in a customer's car, but it's not a federal crime for the owner of the car to install them themselves. State law may or may not require conformance to federal standards, and may or may not enforce conformance with periodic vehicle inspections -- read your own state law, and those of any state you may drive in, before modifying your headlights in any way...)
Moving on to the more general concern, rather than your specific car, blue light does help people stay awake, so there's logically an overall safety benefit for more vehicles on the road having bluer headlights. Conversely, bluer light does cause more glare, which is at first a nuisance, but if severe enough does hurt safety -- there's probably an optimal balance here, but it's hard to say what it is. I'd guess the best balance is in the 4300K or 5000K area, but since 4300K is already the optimum for luminous efficiency, it's probably not worth pursuing farther. Note that legal HIDs never have a color temperature more than 5000K (daylight-like white, appears a touch bluish at night), and are almost all 4300K (nice clean white and greatest lumens/W), or even a halogen-mimicing 3000K. The ridiculously glaring blue-to-violet HIDs you see on some cars aren't "legal" at all (per federal standards), and it's pretty safe to say some of those are on the far side of that optimal balance.
IMO, a good projector system, whether factory or "illegal" retrofit, with 4300K HID bulbs, and aimed properly, is only ever a problem on trucks, vans, and such, where the headlights are high enough to shine directly into low-slung vehicles. But if you're lucky enough to have a vehicle with good halogen headlights (most headlights, halogen or HID, are about as poor as possible while being legal), it'd be stupid to waste time retrofitting it. I'd recommend an HIR upgrade [candlepower.com] if applicable, and quality, non-long-life bulbs otherwise, and be happy with your "legacy" bulbs.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday November 15 2016, @09:41PM
The biggest problem with screens is brightness. Compare the backlight on a phone to something like a digital watch. Watch backlights are usually pretty good at letting you read the screen without blinding yourself. Phones can't seem to do that. I haven't yet seen any phone -- or any other computerized device for that matter -- that has a good backlight since around the days of the original iPod (the old RCA Lyra players had the *perfect* backlight, haven't seen one since). Every single one I've used since is so bright that even at the dimmest setting they're often physically painful to use in a darkened room.
Looking into a phone screen isn't like looking at the page of a book that's being illuminated by a light behind you, that light gets scattered two or three times before whatever's left reaches your eyes. The phone is more like staring directly into a 60 watt lightbulb for a while. Because unlike a watch, the phone isn't illuminating a physical object, the whole screen is just light...so if you're gonna use it outside it has to literally be brighter than the sun!. At the lowest setting it's usually reasonable for use inside a well lit building. In a darkened room they can and should be a hell of a lot dimmer.
My Galaxy S5 for example is around 100 lumens, a "60 watt" bulb is around 800 lumens. So holding the phone at a foot (quite a bit further than I usually would) is like staring directly at a light bulb -- with no shade -- from across the room. That's significantly brighter than whatever light might reflect off the page of a book. A TV would be about the same brightness, but the TV is usually a lot further from your face. I've seen a number of studies previously showing that computer use in particular is an issue, which makes sense since you sit pretty close to the monitor (compared to TV) so it's reasonable to think phones could be even worse -- inverse square law, same LED/LCD tech, but far less distance.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday November 15 2016, @09:49PM
While I absolutely agree with you that the difference in LEDs on a screen vs. in a light bulb or whatever is probably not that significant (and there is a factor having to do with engaging activities on a phone or tablet), there ARE plenty of reputable studies both showing the effect of sunlight on sleep cycles and specifically on certain spectral differences (some emphasized in standard LEDs) on sleep cycles.
First of all southerners freak out about lighting vs sleep but I've survived many dozens of summers in the North where its perfectly normal to go to sleep when the sun is up and wake up hours after sunrise. Its only really dark for a couple hours around midnight. Its simply not an issue in practice. If you believe gulf coast residents that is physically impossible, but they claim its impossible to drive in snow, so what do they know? I think we might be trying to run a scientific study on the equivalent of the legendary topic of "fan death" here.
I don't think anyone (at least no reasonable person) is claiming that it's impossible to sleep while the sun is up, particularly if you're indoors and have shades. And different people seem to have different sleep cycles -- some seem almost "programmed" to like to go bed very late and sleep until late morning, while others struggle to stay away after sunset and wake up before dawn. But for the vast majority of people, light levels (and particularly spectra that are somewhat like sunlight characteristics) DO seem to have significant effects on sleep. I don't think that's controversial at all among experts, and the effects are well-established not just for humans but for many animals. (More details here [wikipedia.org].)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 16 2016, @02:09PM
I don't think that's controversial at all among experts
Its not controversial among people trying to sell an app to "fix" the problem no one knows about without extensive PR. Thats my annoyance zone.