E-readers 'damage sleep and health,' doctors warn

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But nobody I know of would read in bed for 4 hours with an iPad on FULL brightness. That's just too bright. So that really is wrong. It should have been night mode or realistic settings and then the data would have been more accurate instead of plain wrong.

Which post does your "But ..." refer to?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But nobody I know of would read in bed for 4 hours with an iPad on FULL brightness. That's just too bright. So that really is wrong. It should have been night mode or realistic settings and then the data would have been more accurate instead of plain wrong.

This one...

Originally Posted by bminata

Ipads, in FULL BRIGHTNESS, in a DARK ROOM, for 4 HOURS??? All this proves is that some "researchers" are imbeciles in disguise.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Since you fell asleep reading the report, maybe you should give it another go and criticize what was actually written.

Zzzzzzzzzz

But seriously... it doesn't matter if the research was designed "correctly" or not. My personal experience DEFIES its premise/findings. And since I've long ago accepted that I'm just not all that special (albeit grudgingly), I've no choice but to assume that the research (and its findings) simply aren't that universally relevant.

People whose sleep patterns are easily disrupted, may experience their sleep patterns being easily disrupted.

People whose sleep patterns aren't easily disrupted, probably won't experience their sleep patterns being easily disrupted.

Me??? For the past two years or so, I've fallen asleep within 20 minutes of getting prone in bed with my favorite backlit tablet (every night) and sleeping like the dead (every night) 'til morning. I was an excellent sleeper before backlit devices started following me to bed, and I gotta tell ya ... I've only gotten better at it since then.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

My personal experience DEFIES its premise/findings. And since I've long ago accepted that I'm just not all that special (albeit grudgingly), I've no choice but to assume that the research (and its findings) simply aren't that universally relevant.

People vary. That's why virtually all studies of humans (or any other species) are based on sampling and averages. It could be that some study participants experienced an opposite effect, without invalidating anything.

Now, one weakness of this study is that the sample size is just twelve. And the criteria for being included in the study, such as not taking any prescription drug, makes the participants somewhat atypical.

On the other hand, I'm impressed by the care taken with those twelve, and that the effect was so strong as to be statistically significant despite the small sample.

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Apple should sue them for lost sales from the iBook store due to this research.

Is this a joke?

As for the study, I wasn't planning to give up on eInk even before reading it. But it's one good reason for my wife and I to stick with our Kindle Keyboards.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

...People whose sleep patterns are easily disrupted, may experience their sleep patterns being easily disrupted...

They are probably finding it even harder to sleep now that they have the "results" of this "research" to worry about .

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Halk

This is the body of the complaint I sent to the BBC.

Not that I see.

Here is the funding:

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Award UL1 RR025758 and financial contributions from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Harvard University, and its other affiliated academic health care centers]. This work was supported by NIH Grant R01HL077453. The inpatient studies were conducted in the Harvard CTSC, supported by NCRR Grant UL1 RR025758. A-M.C. was supported in part by NIH Grant K01HL115458. D.A. was supported in part by the German Aerospace Center. J.F.D. was supported in part by NIH Grant R01HL094654. C.A.C. was supported in part by NASA NNX10AF47G and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute through NASA NCC 9-58

True, the fourth author has received likely tiny book royalties. Is that what you mean? Should we then dismiss the ideas of everyone who ever wrote a traditionally published book? The study also notes that the same author has received consulting fees from Microsoft and Apple, both vendors of light-emitting devices the study shows to have a negative effect.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by rkomar

First you have to show that there is an affect. That's what the current research shows. Then you can spend more time finding out what the thresholds are (not easy to do). For people who aren't researchers, let me explain something: you rarely get to the final result in one step.

Even though the research isn't complete, this information is still good to know. If you happen to have trouble falling asleep after reading on a tablet or laptop, then you have some idea why that might be so, and what you can do about it. Just because some people can fall asleep after using a dimmer device, and they assume that it hasn't affected their sleep, it doesn't make the research results rubbish.

It is well known and was already scientifically proven that exposure to blue light has this effect and that the iPad has blue light to improve the brightness. This test was specifically designed to induce the results. If the goal was to be a first step using an extreme use case then they should have used a 150 Watt full spectrum reading lamp for the paper book scenario.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

You got this all wrong. In this research they eliminated iPads from the list of sensible reading devices at night.

Huh? Of course they didn't. Try reading for four hours on full brightness on default black-on-white, then try reading for 30-60 minutes on dim brightness with a sepia background or in night mode.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

This particular study has a number of strong faults and makes a probably mistaken or unwarranted conclusion, but it is not that bad.

I freely admit that the biological & medical sciences are my weakest area of scientific understanding, so I may be missing something obvious, but it does seem to me that this research is fundamentally broken, as opposed to being just a first step.

If the research is intended to investigate the effect of different light spectra on circadian rhythm, why conceal any such effect under such dramatically different light levels? Why introduce fundamentally different physical comfort arrangements between the test cases?

The news media are overstating far more than the scientists.

In this case, at least as far as the BBC report is concerned, I'd say the main problem with the reporting is the failure to critically question the research. In terms of the actual claims, the BBC doesn't seem to be overstating it all that much more than the scientists.

/JB

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by meeera

Huh? Of course they didn't. Try reading for four hours on full brightness on default black-on-white, then try reading for 30-60 minutes on dim brightness with a sepia background or in night mode.

Ah yes, of course. You have to go out of your way to get it to full brightness in the first place. Even the default auto-dim, not even going to night mode would be preferable. The way it was setup, I am surprised the test subjects even struggled through the 4 hours of reading. Sure, the eyes will adapt after a while - but reading freewilly hours at a time? I don't think so.

If all they were interested in the study is different peaks (420 vs 620) in light, they could have done so with paper books and different spectrum lamps. If you look, the lightoutput LEereader vs paper is not even close.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

If you look, the light output LEereader vs paper is not even close.

That's because the "light output" reflected back from a newspaper, paper book, or conventional eInk screen, in typical real-life scenarios, "is not even close" to that of a backlit device.

Originally Posted by jbjb

If the research is intended to investigate the effect of different light spectra on circadian rhythm, why conceal any such effect under such dramatically different light levels?

Please quote where in the study they wrote that it is "intended to investigate the effect of different light spectra on circadian rhythm"? I missed that. However, previous research footnoted does show there is such an effect.

For those coming in in the middle, here is the study:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/20...90112.full.pdf

http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/20...01418490SI.pdf

I like it.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

That's because the "light output" reflected back from a newspaper, paper book, or conventional eInk screen, in typical real-life scenarios, "is not even close" to that of a backlit device.

-in real life situations there is not many that will think a full brightness iPad is okay to read from in the low light environment. But to each their own.

Please quote where in the study they wrote that it is "intended to investigate the effect of different light spectra on circadian rhythm"? I missed that. However, previous research footnoted does show there is such an effect.

They stress that the peak at 420 causes the melotin reduced production and how the peak at 620 of normal light bulb doesn't do that. You are hardpressed, in their light output table to see the so called peak at 620 - it is so small, it might not even exist.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

-in real life situations there is not many that will think a full brightness iPad is okay to read from in the low light environment.

Here's what they said about that:

This study had a number of limitations. . . .

However, a number of newer models of light-emitting devices are even brighter than those used in this study. Moreover, in this study, the LE-eBook reader was held at a fixed distance (30–45 cm) from the eye, further from the eye than many people might have chosen (therefore reducing retinal light exposure), particularly for users of smaller devices who may hold the smaller screens closer to the eyes.

Replication under different conditions would be a good idea before Apple and Kindle Fire change the wavelength for their white text backgrounds. But I'm betting the direction of the effect will be as found here.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Please quote where in the study they wrote that it is "intended to investigate the effect of different light spectra on circadian rhythm"? I missed that. However, previous research footnoted does show there is such an effect.

For those coming in in the middle, here is the study:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/20...90112.full.pdf

http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/20...01418490SI.pdf

I like it.

From the study in the link - it talks about the circadian phase and says they are comparing the two ways of reading. I take that to mean that they intended to.

A few reports have shown that these devices suppress melatonin levels, but little is known about the effects on circadian phase or the following sleep episode, exposing a substantial gap in our knowledge of how this increasingly popular technology affects sleep. Here we compare the biological effects of reading an electronic book on a light-emitting device (LE-eBook) with reading a printed book in the hours before bedtime. Participants reading an LE-eBook took longer to fall asleep and had reduced evening sleep in,reduced melatonin secretion, later timing of their circadian clock, and reduced next morning alertness than when reading a printed book. These results demonstrate that evening exposure to an LE-eBook phase-delays the circadian clock, acutely suppresses melatonin, and has important implications for understanding the impact of such technologies on sleep, performance, health, and safety.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Here's what they said about that:
Quote:
This study had a number of limitations. . . .

However, a number of newer models of light-emitting devices are even brighter than those used in this study. Moreover, in this study, the LE-eBook reader was held at a fixed distance (30–45 cm) from the eye, further from the eye than many people might have chosen (therefore reducing retinal light exposure), particularly for users of smaller devices who may hold the smaller screens closer to the eyes.


Replication under different conditions would be a good idea before Apple and Kindle Fire change the wavelength for their white text backgrounds. But I'm betting the direction of the effect will be as found here.

Just because newer devices are brighter doesn't mean it was a good idea for the "study" to use full brightness. There is a night mode and if they wanted to study reading different ways at night, night mode should have been used for both.