Gadgetory

thanks for watching tech quickie click the subscribe button then enable notifications with the Bell icon so you won't miss any future videos what do you associate with blue light we tried to think of some funny stuff and kept coming up with police lights in the rearview mirror just kept popping up guess that says a little something about mine and John's driving records speak for yourself John know what we're really here to talk about is blue light apps that filter blue light have been available for PCs and smartphones for years and it's gotten to the point where I OS and Android now even offer the same functionality built in but why is blue lights suddenly something to avoid I mean it's just regular light and it isn't like you're staring into the Sun and exposing your retinas to all that lovely UV radiation and like mutating in developing superpowers well the main concern about blue light is its ability to disrupt your sleep cycle also called a circadian rhythm specifically when blue light hits your eyes it can inhibit the body's ability to produce melatonin a hormone that regulates sleep now scientists aren't sure exactly why this happens but they think it's because blue light is relatively high in energy compared to other colors that is to say it has a shorter wavelength than red yellow or green light and when you're up and about during the day because you have to go to work or go to school or head off to a CrossFit class blue light from both natural and artificial sources can help you feel energized and focused but at night when your body naturally wants to start shutting down blue light instead tricks the part of your brain responsible for sleep into thinking it needs to stay awake this problem has been amplified in recent years as more and more of us stay up late staring at gadgets that give off lots of blue light such as our computer and phone screens doubles hooligans if you think back to grade school physics white light that we see lots of in our web browsers and mobile apps contain all the colors of the spectrum including blue and modern LED displays often use a base of blue LEDs combined with different chemicals called phosphorus to produce white and of course if you're looking at an AMOLED phone display you're directly exposed to plenty of blue pixels to make matters worse those fancy new LED lights were all installing in our lamps and seedling fans also put out light that's more skewed towards the blue side of the spectrum than those old incandescent bulbs were so just having the lights on in your room before you go to bed might keep you from falling asleep as quickly as you did in the good old days and mom used to read us a bedtime story of course all this can not only cause tiredness but the attendant health problems that accompany chronic sleep loss such as a weakened immune system poor memory and weight gain there are some studies that even suggest that the higher energy blue light can trigger chemical reactions that permanently damage your eyes photoreceptors irreversibly degrading your vision over time though more research on this specific issue is needed as the links between blue light and actual eye injury are much less clear than the ones between blue light and poor sleep there's good news though the solution looks to be rather simple move to Amish country just kidding you don't really need to change your habits that much so if you're like me and tend to lay in bed with your phone late at night turn the brightness down and enable your phone's blue light filter this will make your display appear much warmer so your body won't be trying to tell you to stay awake if you're on your PC instead there are blue light filtering glasses and monitors with built-in filters or failing that Windows 10 has a built-in nightlight in its display settings that will reduce the amount of blue light emitted by your display and another trick is to try and use light bulbs advertised as warm with lower color temperatures on the box these will push your ambient lighting back towards the red end of the spectrum as well it might be annoying to not be able to see things in quite their correct colors before bed but it will at least keep you from having to explain to your boss why you keep yawning during that meeting he makes you sit through every Monday morning I'm glad we don't do one of those that calls for a punch into the face no missed thank goodness are you interested in computer science then check out brilliant a problem solving website that teaches you to think like a computer scientist instead of passively listening to lectures you get to master concepts by solving fun and challenging problems and brilliant provides the tools and framework you need to tackle these challenges brilliants thought-provoking content based around breaking up complex cities into bite-sized understandable chunks will lead you from curiosity to mastery and you'll be in the company of over five and a half 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