eReaders vs. Paperback

 In the article about eReaders the experimenters wanted to study the effects of light exposure on sleep, doing so they studied twelve healthy subject 6 men and 6 women who while in private rooms and were given either a paper book or an eReader to read for 4 hours before bedtime with dim lighting for five straight evenings with a break in between with the two conditions traded off at random. During they study the experimenters took hourly blood tests using through an indwelling forearm IV catheter and then frozen; the samples taken were used to measure the melatonin levels to check how sleepy the participant was. The experimenters also tested for sleep latency, total sleep time, sleep efficiency, and duration of sleep stages (via EEG). The subjects also gave a subjective measure of their sleepiness using the 9 point Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS). In the results they found that suppressed melatonin levels during the eReader portion and participants would comment on not feeling sleepy in the evening but were said to be sleepier in the morning, there was also less rapid eye movement recorded. But not differences were noticed in the other factors that were assessed.

I didn’t really understand why they let the participants hold the book but not the eReader, I just wonder what was significant about not letting them move it. I thought it was interesting how the eReader affected latency and REM sleep but not any other factors I would assume efficiency of sleep would be somehow related to latency and how you feel when you wake up.

This applies to pretty much any and everyone these days. Reading on your phone and on tablets is the trend right now, even for younger children. The effects of light exposure that close to bedtime can hinder performance, and be detrimental to our health. Personally I have a bad problem of leaving my TV on or watching Netflix on my computer before I go to bed and normally I would say it helps me fall asleep but lately I have definitely noticed that it makes it so much harder to fall asleep.