Comment by KaiserPro | Hacker News Reader

Comment by KaiserPro | Hacker News Reader

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Look, darkmode, and the bluelight fear is not really based on that much science.

Yes, UV and top end blue does cause cataracts in people, but thats from the sun, not monitors.

There are at least two strands to darkmode, one is the "It stops me from sleeping" and the other is eye strain.

the sleeping part is almost certainly nothing to do with the colour temperature of the light coming out of your device. If you go outside at dusk, you will note that its overwhelmingly blue in most places, most of the year (in london its orange for an hour in april and october.) yes, sunset tends to be orange, but the long bit after (again depending on longitude) is overwhelmingly blue.

The moon casts blue light.

You can't get to sleep because you've been hooked on twitter/instagram/ticktok and are revved up because that's what they do. "YOU NEED TO DO THIS NOW" or "THE SITUATION IS REALLY BAD, BECAUSE YOU DIDNT X" and "OMG THEY ARE SO HOT" finally "YOU ARE FAILING BECAUSE YOU DIDNT DO THIS ONE OLD WEIRD TRICK"

You have tension headaches because you've been frowning at a screen for many hours. Or you've not blinked, looked up moved your eyes, or generally changed position.

Now, there are some people for whom this doesn't apply, and that blue light is the cause of their woes. But for 99.5% of you, it won't be.

The moon casts blue light.

Moonlight is not blue. In fact it is more red than sunlight.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/72dkh.png

https://i.stack.imgur.com/4wtWq.gif

Thanks, this was new information for me. I always noticed how moonlight on snow looks blueish. But per the Wikipedia article on moonlight[1], this is apparently an illusion:

The color of moonlight, particularly around full moon, appears bluish to the human eye compared to other, brighter light sources due to the Purkinje effect. The blue or silver appearance of the light is an illusion.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight

The comment you’re responding to is nonsense. They clearly don’t suffer from severe insomnia. Dark modes have been a godsend for me when it comes to falling asleep.

There’s no doubt that the stimulation from something like TikTok as opposed to reading a Gutenberg ebook has more to do with the content than the light emitting from your phone. The notion, however, that the light of the phone (or other screen) has nothing to do with mental stimulation is utter nonsense. Brighter light is more stimulating. Period. The details of blue light versus dark mode are completely secondary to the primary concern of a bright white screen with black text opposed to the opposite.

I suffer from severe insomnia. For quite a long time, I've used blue light filters and automatic dimmers on all my devices with screens. A few months ago, when I discovered that there are no studies that clearly confirm the benefits of those things, I decided to stop using them to see for myself.

So far, there is no observable difference. Now, I'm not going to claim that this is therefore obviously the case for everybody else. But, at the very least, it's not universally a "godsend".

I don’t use a blue light filter (my insomnia isn’t severe, but I’ve definitely been diagnosed). There is a palpable difference for me reading before bedtime with light text on a black background instead of black text on white. The gist of my comment was that the blue filter doesn’t matter. In fact, I’m sure the white text is emitting blue light. The point is that the total lumens is much more critical.

My experience has been widely anecdotally backed up in casual conversation in my life (including by a sleep specialist). The blue light stuff is a marketing ploy in my opinion. I’m mentioning blue light repeatedly because you highlighting this makes it seem like I failed to communicate my point. Dark mode, however, is universally a godsend (see “anecdotal evidence” acknowledgement).

Perhaps you’re not a reader? As an insomniac, the only excuse for not reading to fall asleep is ADHD or other focus problems. It’s too ideal a solution for insomnia not to be acknowledged in this context. Please forgive my inflammatory tone, but I tend to doubt you having severe insomnia (coupled with routine in-patient/out-patient sleep studies, medication, etc.) and not being able to follow the flow of my communication here. Having a hard time falling asleep and being diagnosed with severe insomnia are very different.

The moon wasn't the predominant source of light at night for most pre-industrial people. Fire was, and is what we evolved with, which is likely why red light doesn't cause your eyes to constrict (https://thehikingauthority.com/red-light-night-vision-a-myth...)

I would hesitate to believe that crowds sitting around a bright fire at night will produce more viable offspring than those fumbling in the dark away from the light.

The evolutionary mechanism for selecting blue-sensitive rod cells in our retinas along with red-sensitive cone cells must surely be unrelated to the sodium emission spectrum, given that so may other mammals have similar retinas but lack fire-making skills.

Surely the theory is not about sitting at the fire, but about being able to quickly transition between fire and darkness.

But it might also be just a quirk of evolution, or have a completely different reason.

I don't know enough about the relevant physiology to judge the article as a whole, but this bit is not correct:

"That’s why military grade night vision goggles always use a green light. You get a much clearer sight picture with extra contrast while preserving most of the night vision once the light gets shut off."

The trend these days is towards white phosphor in NVDs. This is because, while green is indeed better if you have to look at it and away repeatedly in low light, white is significantly better at producing high-contrast images. And you do want high contrast to be able to spot things when it's dark.

Blue wavelength does have an effect on sleep. The photoreceptors linked to the suppression of melatonin are most sensitive to blue light. And melatonin is associated with the sleep-cycle regulation.

Now re-read the post you're actually replying to and notice that I didn't say anything like what you appear to be responding to.

I've never been worried about blue light. I sleep fine. And stayed away from social media because it seemed unhealthy to me from the start, so I've never been hooked on twitter/instagram/tiktok. I actually feel for the people who are obsessed with it, especially the number of journalists who seem to have defined their jobs and role in life around reporting what was said by whom on twitter. There seems to be a small trend forming around people exiting that particular sink hole and realizing immediate improvements in their life experience. I hope that situation continues to improve, but that's up to each person to decide whether social media is helpful or harmful for their life and goals.

While I do spend a lot of time in front of a screen, I also get up regularly, stretch, walk around, take the dog out for a walk, etc. So I don't get tension headaches. If I feel uncomfortable at all, I do something about it.

Your reply here makes a lot of assumptions about what you know about other people, their situations, what you know about this area of study, and what the solutions are. This is the actual issue that seems to make this light v dark mode discussion more difficult that it needs to be.

What has been properly studied in this area is pretty thin as most areas of scientific inquiry go. So there really isn't much anyone can claim to know here with the levels of certainty you seem to express.

Aside from that, you're being pretty aggressive about giving out unasked advice to people you don't know, whose situations you don't know.

If you can't understand why someone like myself can read and understand everything you just said and none the less enjoy dark mode; if it bothers you that people claim dark mode benefits them in spite of your certainty that they are mistaken and this is just a matter of having the right information, then you might try accepting that people are different, start asking more questions, and dial down the unasked advice. You might happier and more pleasant company for it.

Not everyone needs to be the same for you to be okay with the situation. You don't need to fix people. If anything you just need to understand more.

> What has been properly studied in this area is pretty thin as most areas of scientific inquiry go.

Dry eye based eye strain & tension headaches have good literature to back them up. Its not unknown.

> Aside from that, you're being pretty aggressive about giving out unasked advice

its not advice.

> none the less enjoy dark mode

There is nothing wrong with darkmode, it just has no real medical effect. I have dark mode, and sometimes when I feel like it, high contrast.

You are confusing Ockham's razor with a personal attack.

"Dark mode" and "blue light" and so on remember me also of vertical mice to avoid strain in the "mouse hand". It is not the orientation of the mouse which hurts, it is holding that thing for hours. Solutions? Vary. Mostly using the keyboard for all appropriate tasks (contrary to typewriters you don't need much force to push a key) and place it in a comfortable distance for you, using a TrackPoint, a digitizer pen and tablet, using a bigger or smaller mouse appropriate for your hand and of course do something other with you're hand.

People also started using weird vertical-gripped "ergonomic" knives[0] during that time. They were absolutely horrible to use.

There is a tiny demographic of people with actual joint issues, but for anyone else a regular knife is just fine as long as you use the correct grip.

[0] https://www.arthritissupplies.com/assets/images/ape103-easi-...

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