Here's a more reasonable report on the actual effect--lighting intensity resetting the body's internal clock--from 4 years ago.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/....gadgets.ipad/
Quote:
More than ever, consumer electronics -- particularly laptops, smartphones and Apple's new iPad -- are shining bright light into our eyes until just moments before we doze off.
Now there's growing concern that these glowing gadgets may actually fool our brains into thinking it's daytime. Exposure can disturb sleep patterns and exacerbate insomnia, some sleep researchers said in interviews.
"Potentially, yes, if you're using [the iPad or a laptop] close to bedtime ... that light can be sufficiently stimulating to the brain to make it more awake and delay your ability to sleep," said Phyllis Zee, a neuroscience professor at Northwestern University and director of the school's Center for Sleep & Circadian Biology.
"And I think more importantly, it could also be sufficient to affect your circadian rhythm. This is the clock in your brain that determines when you sleep and when you wake up."
Such concerns are not entirely new: One sleep researcher said Thomas Edison created these problems when he invented the light bulb.
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Our body cycles of activity and rest are driven by the day-night cycle and we have been extending the "day" part for millenia. But it is only recently that we have achieved lighting that actually mimics sunlight to the body's internal clock. The result is essentially jet lag.
It is a well-known effect due to *lighting* not iPads, ereaders, or TVs.
You can get the same result if you read off print with a sun-spectrum lamp or just play Monopoly every night under standard light bulbs.
Tying it to gadgets is just disingenuous spin, especially in a study funded by old-school dead tree pulp purveyors.
Next!