Hi all, want to ask a couple of questions about blue light.
I've been reading up on the potentially harmful effects of blue light, specifically in the form of macular damage/macular degeneration.
I found a few studies on the topic but I'm honestly not informed enough to really understand them:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4734149/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39741521/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11157889/
From what I have read so far, it sounds like there is some evidence that blue light can cause macular damage, but not enough to really conclude with much certainty.
One idea I have heard, is that the reason things like LED lights, and device screens, could be especially bad for your health, is that they have a fairly "blue tinted" spectrum, compared to something like sunlight, which is a lot more balanced:
Example diagram
Example diagram 2
The idea being that having a lot of blue light, without much light of other colours, can cause damage, where a more balanced spectrum could not.
A term I have heard is "Rhodopsin mediated photo reversal", and the idea that this is caused specifically by a lot of blue light + the absence of other wavelengths (as opposed to a balanced spectrum like sunlight, or an old fashioned "hot" light bulb)
My 2 main questions are:
Is it true that not just the absolute intensity, but also the relative intensity of blue light can make a difference? e.g. spectrum which are lacking in other colours could cause more damage than a balanced spectrum?
and
Assume that 1) is true, in that case, what kindof display would you expect to be more damaging, traditionaly LCDs, or OLEDs? As OLEDs tend to have much sharper "peaks" in light intensity, due to how they work, but also a lower absolute emission of blue light. An OLED spectrum might look like diagram 2, whereas an LCD spectrum might look
like this.
I'm sure this is a topic that gets talked about a lot so apologies if any of this is re-hashing obvious stuff
