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Comment by ulrikrasmussen | Hacker News Reader

That quote made me lose interest in anything that article had to say. It's such a ridiculous claim to say that everything that is close to my face is automatically registered as a threat, and I bet that 99.99% of things that regularly gets close to peoples faces (even disregarding smartphones from that statistic) are actually not threats at all. I don't think it makes evolutionary sense at all since it would cause us to perceive our babies and food as threats too.

Either that quote is taken wildly out of context or the interviewed therapist is full of shit.

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I'm surprised you made it that far before filing it as the BS it is, given that "Screens" in general have been the enemy in that article.

Not what they display, how they operate or any other detail. No. Screens. A thing that displays information.

stanford.edu :)

Yes this sort of logic always maddens me. And it has extended to medicine for sure. Simplifying "screen time" as if what type of screen, the size of the screen, brightness, and what you are doing on it are insignificant. Anecdotally I had a "sleep specialist" actually give "no screens before bed" as medical advice. So what am I supposed to do- stare at the wall and think about if I'll be able to sleep? Reading a book will require more illumination which will disrupt circadian rhythm

What's more important is being conscious of what we are doing with screens at what times. I stop using my computer after 7pm typically, no social media before bed or upon waking

Two things work for me, either reading on my phone (I have a support thing) with the eye shield to avoid the blue light or listening to music until I feel sleepy enough to stop.

When it comes to bedtime reading, I found that nothing beats an OLED smartphone so long as you can fully control the brightness and the colors; e.g. a reading app that lets you set whatever you want - i.e. not Kindle - or else things like "color calibration" in GrapheneOS. That way, you can set the text to dull orange or red and dial the brightness very low. With OLED, the blacks are basically non-emissive, so the whole thing can be made extremely little light. This works even better if you gradually dial it down as your eyes get accommodated.

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