EVEN THE GUYS AT TWITTER WANT US TO GET MORE SLEEP
2016 is a fairly enlightened time - the Internet and all our technology is making us more aware of issues affecting the population than ever before… including how that technology is ruining us. Time spent staring at screens is through the roof and one detrimental effect is on our sleep.
Light, especially blue light, like that which floods out of our phone screens, keeps us awake by impacting the production of chemicals in our bodies. By looking at a bright light we make it harder to fall asleep as, essentially, our brain thinks it’s still time to be awake. Less sleep or lower quality sleep over a long period of time can have a huge effect on us; tech companies are cottoning onto this and don’t want us to switch off (as if we could…) so they’re trying to reduce the negative effects and keep us hooked. Earlier this year, Apple released their Night Shift function, putting a yellow-ish filter onto your screen for a defined period in the evening and overnight to encourage you to fall asleep.
Now also on the night time bandwagon is Twitter - but they've taken a slightly different approach. Rather than changing the tone of your screen overall, Twitter's new Night Mode, which has been rolled out to most users already, puts a darker designed skin onto your app, so the whole view is much darker. The dark background means that there should be less light hitting your poor, confused retinas, making it easier and also more comfortable to read in low light.
This design was one of the most popular features from Android Twitter client Falcon Pro. Last year, Twitter hired the app's developer, Joaquim Vergès, and he's brought it with him, much to the delight of iPhone users who can now get in on the action.
I've been trying to pay attention to all this light based commotion and actually found a way to make your screen EVEN darker for bedtime perusal of social media. Even though the lowest brightness setting seems ridiculous in the daytime, it's somehow still far too bright when all the lights are off and you are at least kind of trying to fall asleep...
Yes I know I should just put it down but - who are we kidding.
Anyway, it turns out that by exploiting accessibility features already built into the operating system, you can create your own extra-dark mode, easily toggled on and off with a triple press of the home button. You can find full instructions here - I recommend it, fully aware that I am enabling your bad habits. Sorry.
Even with more and more research showing how bad it is to use devices or watch TV right before bed, we're clearly not going to stop - I mean the best TV is usually on at like 10pm - so what else can we do except play the system as best we can? It's not that we're completely ignoring the advice... just listening to it and modifying our behaviour in small ways that mean we can still do whatever we want. Smh, millennials. When will we learn?