Thanks, this was new information for me. I always noticed how moonlight on snow looks blueish. But per the Wikipedia article on moonlight[1], this is apparently an illusion:
The color of moonlight, particularly around full moon, appears bluish to the human eye compared to other, brighter light sources due to the Purkinje effect. The blue or silver appearance of the light is an illusion.
The comment you’re responding to is nonsense. They clearly don’t suffer from severe insomnia. Dark modes have been a godsend for me when it comes to falling asleep.
There’s no doubt that the stimulation from something like TikTok as opposed to reading a Gutenberg ebook has more to do with the content than the light emitting from your phone. The notion, however, that the light of the phone (or other screen) has nothing to do with mental stimulation is utter nonsense. Brighter light is more stimulating. Period. The details of blue light versus dark mode are completely secondary to the primary concern of a bright white screen with black text opposed to the opposite.
I suffer from severe insomnia. For quite a long time, I've used blue light filters and automatic dimmers on all my devices with screens. A few months ago, when I discovered that there are no studies that clearly confirm the benefits of those things, I decided to stop using them to see for myself.
So far, there is no observable difference. Now, I'm not going to claim that this is therefore obviously the case for everybody else. But, at the very least, it's not universally a "godsend".
I don’t use a blue light filter (my insomnia isn’t severe, but I’ve definitely been diagnosed). There is a palpable difference for me reading before bedtime with light text on a black background instead of black text on white. The gist of my comment was that the blue filter doesn’t matter. In fact, I’m sure the white text is emitting blue light. The point is that the total lumens is much more critical.
My experience has been widely anecdotally backed up in casual conversation in my life (including by a sleep specialist). The blue light stuff is a marketing ploy in my opinion. I’m mentioning blue light repeatedly because you highlighting this makes it seem like I failed to communicate my point. Dark mode, however, is universally a godsend (see “anecdotal evidence” acknowledgement).
Perhaps you’re not a reader? As an insomniac, the only excuse for not reading to fall asleep is ADHD or other focus problems. It’s too ideal a solution for insomnia not to be acknowledged in this context. Please forgive my inflammatory tone, but I tend to doubt you having severe insomnia (coupled with routine in-patient/out-patient sleep studies, medication, etc.) and not being able to follow the flow of my communication here. Having a hard time falling asleep and being diagnosed with severe insomnia are very different.
Moonlight is not blue. In fact it is more red than sunlight.
https://i.stack.imgur.com/72dkh.png
https://i.stack.imgur.com/4wtWq.gif