The harm of blue light on electronic screens has attracted people’s attention in recent years, so many products that advertise anti-blue light have appeared on the market. Apple also introduced the “Night Shift” mode of reducing blue light in iOS 9.3 in 2016, but British scientists have recently discovered that a warm-toned night view may not help your sleep and may even worsen insomnia.
First of all, the night view mode does have a scientific basis. There is a ganglion cell protein called melanopsin (also called melanin) in our retina. This protein can respond to the intensity of light, especially blue light with a shorter wavelength, and thus resist blackening the secretion of hormones ultimately affects sleep.
Each pixel of the mobile phone screen is composed of three sub-pixels of red, blue, and green. The blue sub-pixel has the shortest wavelength. The principle of the night view mode is to greatly reduce the brightness of the blue sub-pixel and even turn it off completely, so the screen appears yellowish.
Since there is nothing wrong with the truth, why does the night view still hinder sleep? The problem is on light with an average wavelength of longer in night-viewing mode.
Experiments by researchers at the University of Manchester on mice have shown that when the phone is in night view mode, the cone cells in the eye respond much more to yellow than blue light. The benefits are completely offset by the yellow light, and even counterproductive, because the cone cells may have more “right to speak” when sending a biological clock signal to the brain to inform whether it is day or night. Therefore, under the stimulation of the warm-tone screen, the cone cells are extremely active, and the work and rest are disrupted.
However, this conclusion is not too rigorous, because this is only the conclusion that the researchers observed when the mice were placed in different colors of light. High-intensity yellow light and white light are also the light that our human body is most exposed to during the day. Research results show that these colors of light have the greatest impact on the sleep cycle.
In short, whether it is research results or common sense tells us that it is the phone itself that affects our sleep. The illuminated screen of the phone undoubtedly tells the brain that we don’t want to sleep yet, so the best and easiest way to prevent the phone from interfering with sleep is to don’t use it.
Studies have shown that exposing a person to blue light a type of short-wavelength light commonly emitted by digital devices and can suppress the body’s release of melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate sleep.
The answer will surely surprise you! Red.
You may like these articles:
