The real problem is simply that you are interacting with your phone instead of winding down. The True Tone for blue light is just a placebo so that you don’t question the real problem which is the phone habit. I turn off all my devices and put them in a drawer at night. I sleep better and enjoy my morning without the impulse to look at my devices constantly.
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BYU Study Suggests Night Shift Mode Doesn't Help iPhone Users Sleep
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I’d take any research from a religious university with a grain of salt. Luckily for us, BYU has the great salt lake to mine for servings to give out with their studies.
Was there supposed to be a usability improvement in the design? I thought it was purely aesthetics.
Sadly I never visited that part of the planet.
For them just sleep before midnight, ideally by 8pm then wake up 8 hours or later.
Only reason people are awake that late is because of artificial light and electricity. When you remove that then people will doze off by 8-ish.
You realize the poster is talking about places like northern Alaska, where the sun doesn’t doesn’t disappear from the sky for about 5 months of the year (then barely comes up during the 5 winter months). I have relatives in Alaska and they’ve talked about playing volleyball and mowing lawns at 3AM because no one can sleep.Sadly I never visited that part of the planet.
For them just sleep before midnight, ideally by 8pm then wake up 8 hours or later.
Only reason people are awake that late is because of artificial light and electricity. When you remove that then people will doze off by 8-ish.
What's new is the researchers tested whether or not bluer LED lights really disrupt sleep. This has been a major discussion point for sleep experts for years (examples below). Now there's evidence, at least in a young, healthy group of people, that it might not really be disrupting sleep. So, this really is big news. More research is needed but this study shows the evidence supporting blue lights disrupting sleep is far from settled.
Examples
The Color of the Light Affects the Circadian Rhythms | NIOSH | CDC
Blue light has the strongest impact. Exposure to blue light (and white light, which contains blue light) during the sensitive period can make it difficult for you to fall asleep and stay asleep.www.cdc.gov
Blue light has a dark side - Harvard Health
Light at night is bad for your health, and exposure to blue light emitted by electronics and energy-efficient lightbulbs may be especially so....www.health.harvard.edu
Blue Light: What It Is and How It Affects Sleep
Many people use electronics before bedtime, but this may have a negative effect on sleep. Learn how blue light disrupts sleep and how to reduce its effects.www.sleepfoundation.org
Sleep and Blue Light
Blue light has a powerful effect on your body clock, called your circadian rhythm. Learn how it can prevent your body from falling asleep and what you can do about it.www.webmd.com
A couple things here, first the article is misleading in how it states things, so are the other sources that published their version of the study. Second, the study only contained 167 people. Third, the findings actually show that not using a phone did have a beneficial effect on sleep, only when the sleep dipped lower than 6.8 hours did it have no effect. Fourth, there have been a lot of studies done by the top researchers in the photobiology space that have put a lot of effort and energy into doing much more comprehensive tests over the past decade+ This would include people like George C. Brainard who runs the Light Research Program at Thomas Jefferson University and has been studying the effects of light on neuroendocrine physiology and circadian regulation since 1984. This study seems to try and get attention by focusing on an Apple feature rather than the science of photobiology.
No one needs to listen to my opinion. However, I did spend 7 years reading, researching, speaking, and participating in the world of photobiology, specifically with LEDs. I am no expert, and likely the people who did this study know even more than I do. But I know enough to see when a report is trying to get attention more than providing scientific information.
Night shift may or may not be helping. It certainly isn't hurting. And with our current understanding of photobiology, using your phone CAN cause sleep issues. But just like so many things in life, it varies by person.
I know since my twenties that working in my computer right before go to sleep means 2 hours in bed before fall asleep.
but relaxing use reduce that time is some portion.
To me, best is not use at all at least 2 hours before go to be
but relaxing use reduce that time is some portion.
To me, best is not use at all at least 2 hours before go to be
Maybe it's not the colour temperature but the brightness. Would have been good if that was another arm of the study.
I have Philips Hue lights throughout the house and they dim to a very dim red about an hour before bedtime. By the time it's bedtime, I'm yawning and I fall asleep within minutes. Not so if I have the lights on their normal brightness level. The warm colour is just a little easier on the eyes, whether or not it helps sleep.
I have Philips Hue lights throughout the house and they dim to a very dim red about an hour before bedtime. By the time it's bedtime, I'm yawning and I fall asleep within minutes. Not so if I have the lights on their normal brightness level. The warm colour is just a little easier on the eyes, whether or not it helps sleep.
That is very possible for a lot of people, but I believe the point is in removing the blue portion of the spectrum, sub consciously the brain no longer responds to what it thinks is daylight and there now it is time to sleep.
I thought night mode was just to make the screen look less glaring when it’s darkish. Turns out what helps people sleep is not to be using your iPhone.
While they have some similarities, Night Shift and True Tone are completely different things. Night Shift supposedly makes you sleep better which is, most likely, just placebo and a gimmick. True Tone, on the other hand, makes the image nicer and less artificial - and that is no gimmick.
If the study couldn’t detect a difference between “phone” and “no phone”, how can it detect a difference between “Night Shift” and “no Night Shift”?
I think I’m safe in saying this study doesn’t contribute to our understanding of blue light effects on sleep at all and so the statement: “the results suggest that blue light is only one factor” is incorrect, the results suggest nothing. If I were reviewing this research I’d have sent it back.
I like Night Shift / Blue Light Filter. However, for individuals that have difficulty falling asleep when using a screen before bedtime, I agree that Night Shift won't make much of a difference (not using the screen at all x minutes before bed is the only way to get results).
Since Apple started to basically adopt industry standards for their displays and calibrate all displays to D65 illumnant/white point, this already made night mode almost obsolete. In the past this made a huge difference, though.
In theory, true tone (if it works correctly) should take ambient light and deliver always the same results, so what’s left of night mode is just a switch for people who prefer their displays even more warm/yellow.
I still have it enabled, since when your eyes adjust to more natural looking white points, you will not go back. However, I mostly prefer it off, since it is harder to read text and when consuming pictures/media, it is just not correct.
In theory, true tone (if it works correctly) should take ambient light and deliver always the same results, so what’s left of night mode is just a switch for people who prefer their displays even more warm/yellow.
I still have it enabled, since when your eyes adjust to more natural looking white points, you will not go back. However, I mostly prefer it off, since it is harder to read text and when consuming pictures/media, it is just not correct.
I've been called a "bat" by my wife, as at nite I turn down ~0% brightness and always keep such devices face down while sleeping. Works like charm ;-)
A new study looking at the effects of low-light functions on smartphone users' sleeping habits suggests that features like Apple's Night Shift mode don't actually improve sleep at all.
Introduced in iOS 9, Night Shift is designed to cut down on the amount of blue light that an iOS device puts out during the evening hours. The feature uses the clock and geolocation of an iPhone or iPad to determine when it's sunset, and automatically shifts the colors of the display to warmer colors, returning the display to its regular settings in the morning.
Now found on most smartphones in some form, Night Shift is based on studies that have demonstrated that blue light can negatively impact sleep by altering the body's circadian rhythm. However, the results of a new study from BYU published in Sleep Health have undermined that premise.
To test the theory, BYU psychology professor Chad Jensen and researchers from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center compared the sleep outcomes of individuals in three categories: those who used their phone at night with the Night Shift function turned on, those who used their phone at night without Night Shift, and those who did not use a smartphone before bed at all.
The study included 167 adults between the ages of 18 to 24 who said they use a smartphone daily. The participants were asked to spend at least eight hours in bed, during which they wore an accelerometer on their wrist to record their sleep activity.
Individuals who were assigned to use their smartphone also had an app installed to monitor their phone use. The app measured sleep outcomes that included total sleep duration, sleep quality, wake after sleep onset and the time it took to fall asleep.
In the second part of the study, the researchers split the sample in two groups – one consisting of participants who averaged about seven hours of sleep, and another that included those who slept less than six hours each night.
The group that got seven hours of sleep saw a slight difference in sleep quality based on phone usage, while those who didn't use a phone before bed experienced better sleep quality compared to both those with normal phone use and those using Night Shift. Within the six-hour group, which had the least amount of sleep, there were no differences in sleep outcomes based on whether the participants used Night Shift or not.
The results suggest that blue light is only one factor that creates difficulty falling or staying asleep, and it's important not to discount the affect of physical interactions like texting, scrolling and posting on sleep outcomes.
Since its debut on iOS, Night Shift has been included in macOS since Sierra. Mac users can enable or disable the feature using the Night Shift tab in System Preferences -> Display.
(Via BYU Communications.)
Article Link: BYU Study Suggests Night Shift Mode Doesn't Help iPhone Users Sleep
