Blue light has gotten a bad rap, getting blamed for loss of sleep and eye damage. Personal electronic devices emit more blue light than any other color. Blue light has a short wavelength, which means that it is high-energy and can damage the delicate tissues of the eye. It can also pass through the eye to the retina, the collection of neurons that converts light into the signals that are the foundation of sight.
Laboratory studies have shown that prolonged exposure to high-intensity blue light damages retinal cells in mice. But, epidemiological studies on real people tell a different story.
As an assistant professor at The Ohio State University College of Optometry, I teach and conduct vision research, including work with retinal eye cells. I also see patients in the college's teaching clinics. Often, my patients want to know how they can keep their eyes healthy despite looking at a computer screen all day. They often ask about "blue-blocking" spectacle lenses that they see advertised on the internet.
But when it comes to protecting your vision and keeping your eyes healthy, blue light isn't your biggest concern.
One way to think about blue light and potential retinal damage is to consider the Sun. Sunlight is mostly blue light. On a sunny afternoon, it's nearly 100,000 times brighter than your computer screen. Yet, few human studies have found any link between sunlight exposure and the development of age-related macular degeneration, a retinal disease that leads to loss of central vision.
If being outside on a sunny afternoon likely doesn't damage the human retina, then neither can your dim-by-comparison tablet. A theoretical study recently reached the same conclusion.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21 2019, @03:02AM (3 children)
Too much blacked porn before bed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21 2019, @03:14AM (1 child)
It's a Tolkien epic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21 2019, @03:25AM
Creampie.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 21 2019, @01:48PM
No, it's too much blew lite before bed.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 21 2019, @06:54AM (8 children)
Alright, then, what precisely is the biggest concern?
Ahhh, here we go:
So - dim your screen (or use a night theme) and use an eye moisturizer. Hmpphh. Been using night themes for as long as I knew that a desktop can be re-themed. Moisturizers? Good idea. I'll try that.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21 2019, @07:40AM (5 children)
also the "bluelight is bad" message is not about damage to eyes, but about fooling the brain into thinking it's still day. blue light stops at sunset (hint: the sun is red), and the brain knows it's night time.
further exposure to blue light during night time messes with the body clock.
you've been here a while, so you may already know about this, but consider http://jonls.dk/redshift/ [jonls.dk] instead of "night themes".
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 21 2019, @09:06AM (4 children)
Thank you for the suggestion.
I have poor color vision. I don't see greens or reds very well. Redshift moves stuff into the red spectrum, and that does weird things to me. I understand intellectually that it does a better job than my night-time themes, but, in practice, not so much.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Monday October 21 2019, @10:02AM (2 children)
Yeah we kind of noticed you hate the reds.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21 2019, @04:10PM
Who woulda though runaway is a blue lover?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday October 21 2019, @05:31PM
That was way back in 2016. Conservatives love the reds now.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday October 21 2019, @07:53PM
You'll sleep when you've had a good bout of physical activity. Sitting in front of a computer all day doesn't do that, so if course you can't sleep at night.
Get active, and you'll sleep better at night, and if you're tired enough you can even leave the lights on, same as falling asleep while reading a book.
Try 5000° kelvin LED lights. The difference is scary good if you're red-green colourblind. Rooms that looked dingy are suddenly like they were just painted. I'm hopeful all that outdoor colour light will chase away the winter blues. Will know in a few months.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21 2019, @11:43AM
It is a little known fact that during the development of blue light LEDs the internal project name was "Nig Magnet".
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sourcery42 on Monday October 21 2019, @04:34PM
FYI - My wife recently had prk vision correction surgery, and she's been using a great deal of those preservative free eyedrops during the recovery. I assume because they are preservative free, those eyedrops come in individual, single use vials. Each vial is made from a seemingly asinine amount of plastic. Trust me, my house and vehicles are littered with them. Regardless of your views on climate change, going through that much hydrocarbon for a few drops of artificial tears seems irresponsible for all but people with real dry eye problems.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Monday October 21 2019, @09:26AM (1 child)
The blue light itself wont cause long term damage, but when your pupil is completely dilated and you look at the same light it will.
Having glare reflecting sunlight or sunlight behind your screen in an otherwise dark environment is going to give you a headache and hurt your eyes.
This sounds like an ideal condition study and so it doesnt apply to most office conditions where you are being packed into rooms with random sunlight angles at random times, with coworkers who kick and scream to have as much sunlight as possible.
If you stare at the sun long enough with dilated open pupils, you will cause damage. It is much worse to look at the sun with sunglasses on than otherwise, and working indoors with sunlight is this, not the conditions described in this study.
Believe me, enough sunlight and/or white screen light in the wrong conditions will hurt your eyes and brain. Studies like this give the impression otherwise, which does nothing but give your boss reason to pack you into rooms with dumb lighting.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday October 21 2019, @08:01PM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Monday October 21 2019, @09:53AM (1 child)
Indeed, there is a lot of evidence now that the sharp rise in short-sightedness is due to lack of exposure to sunlight during early childhood. China (or some regions, anyway) now mandates two hours of outside playtime for small children - precisely because the evidence for this is so strong.
What we have here is just the result of crappy journalism: Journalists taking "blue light" = "sleep problems" and concluding that blue light is bad. Where the actual correlation is that blue light messes with your circadian rhythm, because your body associates it with sunlight. It's nice, that this guy is correcting the record.
It would be even nicer if more science journalists actually had some clue about science, because corrections like this never get the same publicity as the original, erroneous articles.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday October 22 2019, @04:16AM
Do you have any links? I strongly doubt that sunlight prevents short-sightedness, it's just that sunlight corresponds to being outside corresponds to not staring at things at close distance all the time. My working theory is that if we just give kids reading glasses, we will drastically reduce short sightedness.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday October 21 2019, @11:40AM (1 child)
It is nice to finally see some attention to the problems with blue LEDs. But this story does not seem to deliver any real information. They were probably paid off to water it down, as usual. When there are commercial products to deal with with these things (look up Light-Dims), you know there is a problem.
Personally, I'd also like to see more research specifically on the psychological effects of blue LED lights. They don't put them in devices for no reason, you know.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21 2019, @01:46PM
Yes, I also assume that is true of any position that doesn't support what I already believe.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 21 2019, @01:50PM
This idea really works.
Bed is for two things. Sleeping. Sex.
Not for computers or devices. Don't get into bed until you're done with your devices and ready for only bedtime activities.
Your body gets trained that getting in bed leads to sleep.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21 2019, @03:07PM (1 child)
But, it's not about the fucking *eyes* being damaged. It's about melatonin. It's not as bad as some would have you believe, but it's also not good at all to have any sort of modern lights on all night long, leaking into your house.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30311830 [nih.gov]
Otherwise, you need blue light exposure to prevent things like bad vision. That's why the old saying that bookworms get glasses is actually ... true. Causation, not just correlation or suppositions.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5233810/ [nih.gov]
I guess they forget that blue light induces serotonin production in the eyeballs making them less flexible. So if you want myopia to spike more, go ahead, "protect" your eyes.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7792485_Retinal_serotonin_eye_growth_and_myopia_development_in_chick [researchgate.net]
This explains why in nations like China, myopia went from typical background level expected based on genetics to sky-high as there is pressure to study more, play less.
https://bmcophthalmol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12886-018-0829-8 [biomedcentral.com]
https://www.aaojournal.org/article/S0161-6420(16)00025-7/abstract [aaojournal.org]
TFA scares people about macular degeneration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macular_degeneration [wikipedia.org]
So yeah .... not very worried about blue light per-say as it seems to be more related to poor circulation (your eyes need blood .. or they die too) Also, "eye fatigue" has nothing to do with retina... and sleep loss has more to do with hormones than eye damage or fatigue.... anyway....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21 2019, @10:00PM
FYI: It is "per se"
(Score: 1) by jmc23 on Tuesday October 22 2019, @02:24AM
Number of frequencies. Directionality. Ambient/Direct ratio. etc...