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Experts have spoken, studies have been conducted, the results are in: screen time at night is bad for our sleep. The blue wavelengths of light from LED screens like those in our phones, laptops and tablets mess with our circadian rhythm by suppressing the body's release of melatonin, the hormone our body secretes as it gets dark in order to calm us and prepare us for sleep.
When we stare at these blue-lit screens at night time, our bodies don't release the needed amount of melatonin, but release cortisol -- the stress hormone -- instead, which keeps us awake. Neurologists who conducted studies on people who were exposed to blue-heavy lights before bedtime found that those people took far longer to fall asleep than those who were exposed to warmer light or light more evenly distributed across the color spectrum.
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[An] app [f.lux] for your desktop or laptop computer adjusts the color temperature of your monitor throughout the day to best mimic what type of light your eyes should be exposed to at those times. During daylight hours, the light is more blue-toned and similar to the bright daylight you would be exposed to outside, but as day turns to night, the monitor slowly goes warmer to match the indoor lights around you.
The article also mentions two other apps, Oyster and Twilight. Have any Soylentils used apps like these?
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Thursday August 06 2015, @11:27PM
I have it installed on all my computers. I also have a pair of Gunnars I use throughout the day and night.
I'm a chronic insomniac, so I can't really say whether f.lux helps, but the Gunnars do seem to cut back on eye strain, long as you take them off before you look at other things. WRT the Gunnars, I don't know if that's due to their "special" tint or something I could replicate with a pair of $5 reading glasses, it's hard to say.
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2015, @11:49PM
Sometimes I would go into the color settings of the monitor and remove blue. I've been doing this for years now and I think it does help. I also use a program called color toggle for the web browser and I have the little icon at the top of the firefox screen where I can toggle between normal and a black background with red font. I also keep my desktop background and taskbar black. I think all of this helps.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday August 07 2015, @12:23AM
Neat trick. I wonder if I can do it in laptop BIOS.
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(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday August 07 2015, @04:38AM
Sometimes I would go into the color settings of the monitor and remove blue. I've been doing this for years now and I think it does help. ...
I find just setting the document background to grey instead of white helps a lot.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2015, @05:48AM
I've done that too.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday August 07 2015, @12:22AM
I use f.lux on my iDevices and just installed it on my MBP. I feel much less eye-strain when using my devices at nighttime (which I do often) now.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday August 07 2015, @12:26AM
I use a screen filter app on the phone that simply adds a % multiplier to brightness (potentially allowing you to put it too low and essentially... brick the phone?). Good to use since the lowest amount of brightness my phone gives off is more than what I need in a dark room and strains the eyes.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2015, @05:17PM
I have a screen filter that I put on my tablet as well. I believe that if you turn off the phone/tablet and turn it back on the screen filter would not start up with the device and so then you can have your screen reset(?). Then I assume you can go into the screen filter app settings and clear the cache to reset the default position?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Gault.Drakkor on Friday August 07 2015, @01:03AM
I have used f.lux on my computers for 6+ months.
Can't say that it has helped me go to sleep earlier. It does make the screens much easier on my eyes. One of my computers, if haven't used it for several hours, when bumped out of screen saver will have regular color for a second before f.lux kicks in, I find it painfully bright for that second.
But setting devices aside, preferably away from the bed where I am not tempted to grab it for 'just a minute' does more for me getting to sleep when I should.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday August 10 2015, @09:11PM
I keep one device by my bed -- a Nokia N800 running a todo-list editor I wrote for it.
Nothing fancy -- it lets me wake up at night and add entries, so I don't have to worry any more about forgetting them and I can go back to sleep.
I look at them in the morning and can reconsider, fully awake and no longer half-dreaming, whether I really still want to paint the cat blue. Or take out the garbage.
I don't even own a cat. I do have garbage to take out.
I get a better night's sleep.