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Unless you printed out this post on paper, you are exposing your eyes to blue light right now as you read these words. But is that a bad thing? Read on to discover the truth about how the light emitted from your phone, tablet, or computer really impacts your health.
Depending on its wavelength, light in the visible spectrum has a slightly different color. Red has the longest wavelength, while blue has the shortest. The sun is the largest source of blue light (as well as all other wavelengths, comprising what we call white light).
However, man-made sources of blue light abound in our modern society. LED and fluorescent bulbs emit blue light. So do the screens of our beloved digital devices. While there’s a growing concern about how our use of these devices, especially at night, impacts our health, the issue is more complicated than you might think.
You’ve probably heard that blue light can damage your eyes. In fact, you can find multiple websites with a quick Google search that claim this type of light causes everything from eyestrain to migraines and even macular degeneration. Yikes!
But as a savvy consumer, you might also notice that these websites also offer special glasses or filters that claim to block blue light. Therefore, they have a vested interest in making you worry about the effects of electronic screens on your eye health.
The American Academy of Ophthalmology states that there is no scientific basis in claims that blue light causes long-term physical damage. The discomfort some people have after looking at screens is most likely digital eye strain. Most of us blink less when looking at screens, causing eye strain and dry eyes, says Rahul Khurana, MD, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
According to study from December 2019 at the University of Manchester, we might be all wrong about the link between blue light and bad sleep.
The consensus these days is that using light-emitting devices after dark–such as reading on your phone in bed–will interrupt our natural sleep schedules. The body’s circadian rhythm tells us to be awake and alert during daytime hours and sleep at night. So if blue light mimics sunlight, it must convince our bodies to stay awake, right?
Previous research indicates that exposure to blue light at night delays the body’s production of melatonin, the hormone that helps us fall asleep. The new study, however, experimented by exposing mice to different colors of light and found that warm-hued yellow light was actually the worst for sleep.
At this point, experts can only agree that prolonged exposure to bright light, regardless of color, before bed can negatively impact sleep. But even then, it’s less about your circadian rhythm being disrupted and more that you can’t stop scrolling through social media.
