“BLUE FILTER” SCREEN PROTECTOR*

By: Griffin Lord

The Problem:

Technology has advanced faster in the past 15 years than it has in the rest of human history. Though it has done a lot of good for the world it has done just as much if not more to harm it. A lot of the problem can be beyond the average person but there is something you can do to help yourself. 

The physical strain on our bodies caused by tech is massive, especially on our eyes. The brightness of the screens can strain your eyes. Looking at text on a screen all day can also strain them. “The vision council have found that 60.5 percent of Americans who use digital devices for more than 2 hours a day have reported eye strain”(SOURCE). The blue light emitted by screens can not only strain your eyes but also make it harder for you to sleep. “‘Artificial light exposure between dusk and the time we go to bed at night suppresses the release of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin, enhances alertness and shifts circadian rhythms to a later hour—making it more difficult to fall asleep,’ says Charles Czeisler, MD, of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital”(SOURCE). Blue light can reduce the amount of melatonin your body produces. Melatonin is the chemical your brain releases to help make you fall asleep, so without the proper amount of it your sleep can be greatly reduced. An excess of blue light can also cause headaches. Headaches can make it hard to focus and can also make you cranky. These factors can lead to a great decrease in your mental health. So much damage is caused simply by bluelight from your phone and computer screen. 

I have personally suffered at the hands of the blue light from screens. I spend most of my time in front of the computer. This is obviously because of online classes due to covid, but also because my job is making videos for the university. I could actually feel my eyes straining in their sockets. I got eye twitches and dry eyes. The worst symptom I have from overexposure is one I’ve also heard from a lot of my family and friends: Headaches. I would get such extreme headaches I had to go lay down. They would cause me to be cranky and tired. This would make people upset with me because I was irritable and upset a lot. Just the bluelight from the screens around me were upsetting my emotional and social sensitivities. I realized I needed to try to solve this problem. 

Blue light filters are almost an absolute necessity in this modern age of screens. I have glasses with a blue light filter but they were for distance vision and I only really wore them while driving. I never considered they could serve a greater purpose. So I made myself wear them for one week whenever I used a screen. I realized that, slowly, my sleep patterns were getting better and also that my headaches were going away. This was amazing! It was a solution that worked without putting in too much work. Though I did discover a couple issues with this solution. One is that it was very easy to forget to wear them. Also most every time I started work in the morning it would take me almost 20 minutes to remember to put them on. Another problem was that they were uncomfortable to wear with my over the ear headphones that are required for my job. The headphones would press the temples of my glasses into my head and it would hurt and leave a mark after a while. And finally the last issue is with my prescription. Since they are for distance it can strain my eyes while looking really close up for long periods of time. So while wearing my glasses at the computer did help quite a bit, there is definitely room for improvement. If you are wondering about my experiment with my glasses here is the link to my daily journal about it: (Glasses Journal)

The Solution:

The way to stop the blue light problem is at its source: The screen. Unfortunately phone and computer companies probably would not change their screen designs. Why make a screen that makes people use their product less? The real solution is what you put on the screen. Screen protectors serve the obvious purpose of keeping the screens of our devices from getting stretched and fracturing, but could they serve another purpose? 

Something that people are missing right now is how simple physical strains can have a deep impact on your mental health. Headaches and eye strain can be enough to deteriorate your mental health. It is important to eliminate these small symptoms before they help lead to a big buildup of stress and anxiety. I have personally experienced this and simply filtering out the blue light from screens greatly improved my mental health by easing my headaches and eye strain. 

Blue Filter is now selling screen protectors for devices so that we can now be protected from its harmful effects without even having to think about it. It blocks the blue light that causes headaches and eye strain. It also will help you fall asleep at night as you will be producing more melatonin. This is all important as it will improve mental health and relationship strength. With Blue Filter you will be much less irritable due to the physical stresses on your body that blue light causes. You will be far less irritable without headaches and more sleep. Your social standings with people will increase as your happiness levels go up and your stress levels go down. It also removes the inconveniences of wearing your glasses at the computer that I felt. You can never forget to put them on because the protection is now part of your devices. The protection from the blue light will be now built into the device and you will never have to think about it. Nore more forgetting to wear glasses, you can just get started working and know you get all of the same benefits. This simple product will improve your mental health and relationships with no effort by the user. That is a redesign for the future of humane technology. 

The Common Screen Protector:

Pros:

1. They resist scratches
2. They can keep the screen from shattering
3. Keep the underlying screen clean
4. reduce anxiety of breaking your phone

Cons:

1. Can be expensive
2. allow harmful light of the screen to just pass through

Blue Filter‘s Screen Protector:

Pros:

1. They resist scratches
2. They can keep the screen from shattering
3. Keep the underlying screen clean
4. reduce anxiety of breaking your phone
5. Block harmful blue light
6. Makes it easier to sleep by not letting your screen reduce your melatonin levels
7. Reduces headaches and eye strain allowing you to feel moire free and reduces your stress levels
8. Improves your relationships because of all of these benefits!
9. Costs the same as a normal screen protector

Cons:

1. None that we can see!

*THIS ARTICLE WAS SPONSORED BY BLUE FILTER

In Class Humane Design Guide:

Humane Design Guide_Griffin Lord