FastCoDesign:
When I was 14, I saved up money from my first web design job to trick out a really nice gaming PC. I outfitted my computer with tons of blue LED fans, and I kept it on at night, right next to my bed. Shortly after, I realized my sleep patterns were changing. While I wasn’t staying awake any later, it now took me longer to get to sleep. Was I eating differently? Was it just a part of being a teenager? Was it the light in my room? But the orange light from my ’80s era alarm clock wasn’t keeping me up. I finally determined that it must be the particular shade of blue light from my new computer. It took me some research to realize all this, but once I did, I started turning my computer off at night. Problem solved. And when I bought my next computer, I ordered fans with orange lights.
I think it’s intuitive that lights would interfere with your sleep pattern, but turns out that blue light “inhibits the production of melatonin, the hormone that regulates our sleep cycles.”
Er…he put a large gaming computer right next to his bed and wondered why his sleep was being affected?
Whoops! She. Nonetheless, my point remains — if you put a gaming computer right next to your bed, it may well have some effect on your sleep, irrespective of what color the LEDs are.
Blue light make one guy miserable. Headline expands the scope of the problem by 7 billion people. Welcome to the internet.
True enough.
Not to mention real-world research and multiple on-site experiences over several decades. Welcome to Internet comments.
Maybe she found the sound of a spinning hard drive comforting in a small room?
Amusingly, this one has been studied.
An admittedly small sample size, but showed no color causing slower sleep than white light, and all the benefit being from the subject’s preferred color, rather than one fixed color.
(And even the non-preferred color caused sleep faster than white light!)
Harvard had some scaremongering about blue light and melatonin levels and circadian rhythm length, but had to cover the press releases in “if”s, and in any case, was compared only with green, and was far more than “incidental LED levels”.
I’m calling shenanigans on “it’s a few blue LEDs making it hard for me to sleep, and it’s because they’re blue!!!”.
I tried to avoid buying anything with an always-on blue LED for years. I finally gave up and now just tape over the ones in my bedroom.
I’ve actually seen LED bedroom clocks in blue and I just shake my head. The only color of LED that should be in the bedroom is red. Even my Apple TV’s white LED is too much at times.