ELi5: Why do phones have blue light filters? What are those blue filters actually doing and or helping? Furthermore, should we be watching ‘blue light levels’ from other devices like TVs, monitors, etc?

Question

I think this might be a blend of the technology/engineering/biology flairs, hopefully I made this post correctly!

In: Technology

Answer 1

The initial thought process was that we thought blue light stimulates brain activity or something like that. So phones started coming equipped with blue light filters so that later at night you could turn that on and in theory that would help you fall asleep better after you were done, as opposed to without the blue light filter your brain activity would be stimulated and you’d have a tough time falling asleep.

But new research is indicating the blue light doesn’t have the effect on brain waves that we thought it does so at this point blue light filters are for all intents and purposes essentially useless and really only serve to skew the color of your display.