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

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

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.

It was a good idea if they *intended* to demonstrate that iPad "ereaders" werd not safe for human use.

Kinda like the way cyclamates were "demonstrated" to be unsafe for rat consumption:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_cyclamate#History

Further research resulted in a 1969 study that found the common 10:1 cyclamate:saccharin mixture to increase the incidence of bladder cancer in rats. The released study was showing that eight out of 240 rats fed a mixture of saccharin and cyclamates, at levels of humans ingesting 350 cans of diet soda per day, developed bladder tumors.[5]

There is a loonngggg tradition of tailoring experimental parameters to obtain a desired outcome that aligns with funding sources. Whether it be tobacco companies or food nannies it doesn't matter; agendas must be supported, scientific honesty be damned.

The target this time just happens to be Apple rather than a pharmaceutical company.

My guess is ssomebody at Penguin is ticked off at Apple.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

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.

i have an H2O and when I read with the front light in bed in the dark, I have it at 4-6% brightness. There is no way I would have an iPad in my face at fill brightness. In fact, I have my iPad, iPhone, and laptop all turned down because otherwise, they are too bright.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

It was a good idea if they *intended* to demonstrate that iPad "ereaders" werd not safe for human use.

That's why I put study in quotes.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

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.

It's not a bad idea to start with the worst case and work your way down. Better than picking some other arbitrary settings.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

It's not a bad idea to start with the worst case and work your way down. Better than picking some other arbitrary settings.

Settings no one's going to use (for any length of time) when reading in a bedtime environment ARE already arbitrary.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

It's not a bad idea to start with the worst case and work your way down. Better than picking some other arbitrary settings.

Actually, it's better to start with normal settings and work your way up until you get to settings that cause sleep problems. That way you know when the settings are not correct for proper sleep. So the article could say that using the following settings does not interfere with sleep and these settings on up do. That would make the article much more accurate and it would show that the researchers did proper research.

Besides, if I read in bed with an iPad on full brightness, I would bother my wife so she'd tell me to turn it off. So that's one very good reason not to read on full brightness in bed at night as you'll disturb anyone else in bed with you.

[fjtorres]

The only people who use tablets at full brightness in a dark room are looking for a cheap tan.

A competent/honest researcher would've run a survey of the conditions people read in at night (even a quickie online survey of the kind college researchers post around here every month or so would do) or if they were just plaine lazy they could have used the factory default settings. To go straight to maximum brightness tells us they were actively looking to cause the condition not just looking to seeif it occured naturally.

And, of course, making up the idiot term LE-ereader to pretend a tablet is representative of the ebook reading space is as bizarre as calling a pickup truck a gaspowered wheelbarrow. Stupid or intellectually dishonest.

Not sure which of the two it is but either way it is pretty clear the whole thing is a spin job.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The only people who use tablets at full brightness in a dark room are looking for a cheap tan.

A competent/honest researcher would've run a survey of the conditions people read in at night (even a quickie online survey of the kind college researchers post around here every month or so would do) or if they were just plaine lazy they could have used the factory default settings. To go straight to maximum brightness tells us they were actively looking to cause the condition not just looking to seeif it occured naturally.

And, of course, making up the idiot term LE-ereader to pretend a tablet is representative of the ebook reading space is as bizarre as calling a pickup truck a gaspowered wheelbarrow. Stupid or intellectually dishonest.

Not sure which of the two it is but either way it is pretty clear the whole thing is a spin job.

Full brightness is for watching a video and outdoors.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

It's not a bad idea to start with the worst case and work your way down. Better than picking some other arbitrary settings.

Using night mode at night is not arbitrary.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Using night mode at night is not arbitrary.

Okay, start from the bottom and work up. Which way is more likely to encourage another experiment? One which produces a measurable result, I think.-)

[tompe]

I use around 20 for light in darkness on my PW1. I also use the auto-brightness on my phone and no special night mode when reading in darkness. I think a lot of people do exactly like me. That is not changing anything for reading in darkness.

[tompe]

Also, people should read the paper before accusing the researcher of bad methodology. Just because you do not like the result it does not mean that the methodology was bad and you can claim that without reading the paper.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by tompe

I think a lot of people do exactly like me. That is not changing anything for reading in darkness.

I think you'll find you're wrong. I suspect most people drastically dim their backlit screens for reading in darkness. Many even download apps for their phones/tablets that allow them to dim the screen even further than the built-in settings allow.

And in case you didn't notice, most people ARE questioning the methodology after reading the study.

Not me of course. I don't need to read it to know it's horsepoop.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by tompe

Also, people should read the paper before accusing the researcher of bad methodology. Just because you do not like the result it does not mean that the methodology was bad and you can claim that without reading the paper.

Do you know anybody who would read a book on an iPad in a dark room with the brightness at full and be comfortable with it?

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by tompe

Also, people should read the paper before accusing the researcher of bad methodology. Just because you do not like the result it does not mean that the methodology was bad and you can claim that without reading the paper.

People did read the paper, that's how they know about the poor methodology. The news sources sure didn't report on it (or apparently read it).