Quote:
Originally Posted by pruss
In the study, they were using a white screen at full brightness. Just about nobody here reads like that. Many of us who read in the dark either set the screen to a very low brightness or put the screen in reverse video. Some set the background to sepia, which shifts the spectrum heavily towards the red end.
The authors also note that there is no melatonin suppression if you filter out the short-wavelength light by using orange goggles. So if you read in a red-screen mode, especially a red-on-black mode, you will do much better.
In fact, I suspect if you read in total darkness with a red-screen mode, you're liable to do better than an eInk or book user, unless the latter is using colored goggles or a red flashlight (which isn't a bad idea).
My favorite for reading in the dark is green on a black background, which I would guess is a decent compromise between looking good and not causing too much melatonin suppression, especially since our eyes are most sensitive in the green range, so that the intensity can be decreased significantly.
What I say applies best to OLED screens, since on backlit screens there is some white-light leak through black pixels (actually, on my phone, there is a tiny amount of background glow, too, but you have to be in darkness and dark adapted to see it).
I normally set my OLED-based phone to a red-only mode for the night so if I happen to look at it at night, it doesn't affect dark adaptation and sleep as much.
There is also an app called CF.Lumen in Google Play that shifts the spectrum towards the red as the evening wears on, thereby hopefully making one sleep better. (It requires root and last I checked it didn't work on Android 4.x.) I suppose if you have the right kind of LED lighting, one could program house lights to do that, or one could make a booklight that subtly shifts in color (maybe it would have a white LED and a red LED, and it would decrease the brightness of the white and increase that of the red as it got later).
Conflict of interest disclaimer: I make apps (the paid ScreenDim, and the free RootDim and GalacticNight) that improve the night usability of many Android devices.
|
None of this is new. I have been using darkroom "safe" bulbs for nearly two decades in order to not have white light affect me if I have to get up during the night. It was something originally taught in the Navy - you spent a couple of hours in a "ready room" which only had red lighting before standing watch on the bridge at night. It didn't take long to discover that doing the same thing at home, reading under a safe light of an evening allowed you to fall asleep more easily and awake more refreshed.
I looked for an app to allow the same thing on an iPad - reading with red text - but could not find one. For that reason I read my Kindle with a modified book light - I have fitted a section of a car's red brake light lens over the LEDs on the book light. Not elegant but it works.