Disturbing Facts About The Harm Of Staring At Your Phone All Night

Is the photo above a familiar scene?

We are all busy people, and the only time we have to chill, unwind, catch up with social media and the latest netflix episodes while lying in the comforts of our bed at night.But do you know that doing this is very bad for you? The consequences listed below may seem like an overkill or exaggeration, but this is no joke. The effects are so serious that Apple had to introduce a new feature called “Night Shift” in iOS 9.3 that helps decreases such effects.

Staring at our phone screens at night can cause a variety of harmful effects.

Harmful effects of using mobile devices in the dark before you sleep can include:

1. Lower memory ability the next day
2. Lower learning ability
3. Poorer sleep quality
4. Risk of obesity
5. Cataracts
6. Retina damage
7. Depression

Tech Insider published an info-graphic on that just recently. Take a look:

Recently, I experienced this for myself as well. I was chasing a very nice drama series, but because my work often take me till late in the evening, I ended up watching the show on my iPad at night in a dark room before I sleep. I noticed that although my eyes were very tired & and felt heavy by the time I decided to turn in, I just couldn’t sleep. My mind was still fully awake and racing. That was when I did some research and realized this whole issue of using mobile devices just before sleep.

I noticed that although my eyes were very tired & and felt heavy by the time I decided to turn in, I just couldn’t sleep. My mind was still fully awake and racing.

Research has shown that this is due to exposure to blue light just before we sleep, which is against our nature. Our minds associate bluish and white lights to day time, while orange or brown lights to night. By staring at bright and white light before sleep, we are actually telling the primitive parts of our brains that it is not time to sleep yet.

Apple came up with an elegant solution for this in iOS 9.3 Called the Night Shift mode, it automatically dims the screen and filters it so that the entire screen looks yellowish-orange, devoid of all traces of blue.

Android users aren’t so lucky as this feature wasn’t baked in. On Android, the issue is also compounded by the fact that different device manufacturers have different definition of what is the minimum brightness, and in most cases even the minimum brightness is way too bright for use in the dark.

Apple came up with an elegant solution for this in iOS 9.3. Android users aren’t so lucky as this feature wasn’t baked in.

Thankfully, there are third party apps built to help with that!

Enter Dimmer: Night Mode With A.I. Developed by a local (Singaporean) app development company, this app uses an intelligent A.I to detect if you are in a dark room. If you are, this app automatically and dramatic lowers your screen’s brightness to a level that is much lower than what your manufacturer allows, so that your device’s screen is more gentle on your eyes.

If you are in a dark room, Dimmer: Night Mode With A.I is the only app that automatically lowers your screen’s brightness to beyond the lowest available setting to be more gentle on your eyes.

We want to protect our well-being to continue enjoying our favourite TV series and social media network. Let’s do something about it today.

Download the app from the Google Play Store now to get started on a good night’s sleep.

Photo from Shutterstock, woman in bed with phone