We all know the story: you should go to bed but, before you do, you want to check a few things the Internet – reddit perhaps, or your own favorite blog. Before you know it, it’s three in the morning and you don’t even feel tired.
Aside from the terribly distracting nature of the Internet, there is something else less obvious keeping you up at night: the light from your computer screen.
Light is an important factor in helping your biological systems regulate your day. Studies show that the white light from a computer screen is a little too much like sunlight. Your poor, over-tired mammalian brain doesn’t send you signals to sleep late at night because it thinks that’s daylight streaming into your eyeballs.
Flux is a program to solve this problem. Enter your GPS co-ordinates or city and at sunset Flux will slowly change the color of your screen. You’ll go from the usual, blindingly-white of this:
To a more orange this:
While it can’t completely save you from yourself if you’re determined to stay up late, it does help you feel less alert. If you find yourself staying up late on the computer when you don’t mean to, download flux and give it a try.
--
Header photograph by asmine.
Most Popular Articles