Reading on iPad before bed can affect sleep habits

Apple's iPad can do movies, music, e-mail, apps and rich Web browsing. And of course, e-books. Should Amazon just put its comparably basic e-reader, the Kindle, to sleep?

Not so fast. Sleep experts say using the iPad before bed can affect sleeping habits unlike most other e-readers.

The difference? Devices like the Kindle, the Nook (the top part of the screen that displays books) and popular e-readers from Sony use a technology called e-paper. It simulates the look of an actual printed page and does not emit light. That means, unlike the iPad, you can effectively read in direct sunlight. (Beach, anyone?)

The iPad, however, contains a touchscreen liquid-crystal display that, like computer screens and television sets, emits light. On the plus side, you can sneak the device under the covers while your significant other sleeps beside you and flip through a couple pages of a book without a flashlight.

But staring at the screen before bed could leave you lying awake. That's because direct exposure to such abnormal light sources inhibits the body's secretion of melatonin, say several sleep experts.

If you've watched any late-night TV, you've no doubt heard the term thrown around in commercials for sleeping pills. Melatonin signals are sent through the brain as a response to darkness, telling the body to prepare to shut down for the night.

Light-emitting devices, including cellphones and yep, the iPad, tell the brain to stay alert. Because users hold those devices so close to their face, staring directly into the light, the effect is amplified compared with, say, a TV across the room or a bedside lamp, said Frisca Yan-Go, director of the UCLA Sleep Disorders Center in Santa Monica.

Some say e-ink is easier on the eyes than the screen on a computer (tablet or otherwise). However, the Wall Street Journal published a report this month to the contrary.

Yan-Go was eager to point out the advantages of books over e-readers. Paper books are often lighter; they can be dropped when you doze off holding them; and if they get wet, it's not the end of the world. And they won't mess with your sleep cycle.

"The take-home lesson is that insomnia and electronics gadgets emitting light should not [be] mixed before bedtime," UCLA Neurology Clinic Director Alon Avidan, also an associate professor at the university, wrote in an e-mail. However, "Kindle is better for your sleep," he wrote in another e-mail.

-- Mark Milian
twitter.com/markmilian

Photo credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[David]

Aw, darn it. Do you mean the iPad will keep me awake while I'm reading? What a revolting development.

[Peter Paul Sadlon]

Trust me as an avid reader when I say reading anything before can affect sleep habits one way or another.

[Mike]

Ahhhh! Don't ever get an iPad! You will never sleep, you may get cancer even, and you will even grow hair on your palms. Oh, and it might even kill your first born.

[Damon]

Actually, melatonin expression is controlled by exposure to the blue wavelengths - or rather, inhibited by exposure to blue wavelengths at night, no matter the source (television, cool fluorescent lights). Warmer sources of light such as candles or oil lamps probably exhibit little effect. It should be a simple matter to program "night-time" reading modes into the iPad - simply avoid the wavelengths of light that activate melatonin suppression.

[Leslie Ellen Shear]

In order to read my Kindle in bed, I must turn on the bedside lamp, which produces far more light than my iPad emits. I find I fall asleep faster reading iPad.

[Joe Pantuso]

Actually if you use a reader on iPad (or iPhone or Android) that offers a black background and amber text, and read it with the lights off, you'll get less light exposure, and therefore less sleep disruption, than you would with paper or e-ink and a bedside lamp.

I've been doing this over six months, and on iPad 3 weeks with less problems than paper.

[Vicky]

@Leslie Ellen Shear Hmmm may be... but it's not good. The rays which are emitted by iPad is just like the one produced by computer. So it may disturb you while sleep.

[Matt]

The point made may be valid, but why pick on the iPad? Surfing the web before going to bed, or watching TV surely has the same effect. The article also seems to be biased - Kindle might be better for your sleep, but if you're trying to read a book, do you really want something to put you asleep?

Or maybe the UCLA Neurology Clinic Director means Kindle will have less impact on your sleep patterns once your asleep, and therefore it's not about how easy it is to fall asleep, but the quality of the sleep and therefore have a longer term health effect - that might be possible, but shouldn't a UCLA Neurology Clinic Director should be clear about what he means in this respect? And anyway, how many emails did he write until he said enough to report on??

It comes across as cheap journalism - iPad in the title (hot topic, therefore capturing readers' attention), and a little bit controversial (it'll stir up the fanboy/apple-hater bickering), but facts not clearly reported on. Isn't there more interesting news to report on?

[Brandon]

I read books on my iPod Touch with the colors flipped, with white text on a black background. It lets me read in the dark and has a gentle, calming effect. I often read when I cannot sleep otherwise. It takes my mind off of whatever else may be preoccupying me. Doing the same on an iPad should be no different.

When I try to read a paper book, I need to have the light on, which always keeps me awake. Reading in the dark has gotten me more sleep and more time to read.

[Sal]

Love the comments by the armchair journalists here, nit-picking the article.

You're getting what you pay for. And get more comfortable with it - in a few years all you're going to be reading on your Ipads are blogs and comments generated by a nation of amateurs - because nobody wants to pay professionals anymore.

[Rd]

I call B.S. I have been reading on my iPad b4 bed since Apr 3rd and on the iPhone for a long, long time b4 that, no sleep issues here

[Randall]

Why don't you turn the light down to it's lowest level when going to sleep in your bed. It's just like reading a kindle. That way you don't have a bright light and disturb your's and your partners sleep. Simple as that.

[jlee]

If you people leaving comments are really avid readers, why would you support devices that are detrimental to writers and the publishing industry?

[A Rothman]

Its okay. Apple would be happy to sell you an Apple branded sleeping pill to help you sleep. Of course, it will come with a high price tag so they can maintain their profit margin.

[Derek]

Not a single study cited. Pure speculation.

[Tab Cocovillea]

More headline grabbing junk science. Fortunately, the posters here seem to have more common sense than the author, who is quite happy to push misinformation on the readers.

[Karren]

The iPad is great for many things, but reading is not one of them.

[My opinon means nothing]

I'll just stick to my old school books.

[Eric]

Funny, I fell asleep reading this article!

[Sam Bennett]

This needs the program Flux that alters the screen to change the eerie blue glow that keeps you awake and its works brilliantly.

[David Garth]

The book reader on the iPad has a brightness control that allows the reader to make the "white" of the background the same brightness as the white paper background of a book that's lit with a reading lamp in a dimly lit room. So even if the author's premise is correct (that a brighter page read before bedtime may inhibit sleep) the iPad's page isn't necessarily any brighter. If it's the same brightness, held the same distance away, and has a similar spectral characteristic, what's the difference?

I wonder if the author or the sleep "expert" have actually ever read anything with an iPad.

[Thor Goodrich]

This is utter nonsense. Where did the seed germinate to publish this unfounded hype? I have been using the iPad most nights for atleast 90' each evening and I fall asleep right away, no problem. In fact I have dosed off a number of times before eventually placing on table. And before the iPad I was using the iPhone the same way since June last year. I am well rested each morning.

[premium LCD domains]

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so, we must ban also the use of TV before sleep...
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[premium LCD domains]

the future will be 99% LCD and 1% e-ink

[Infomercyall]

??? Then how come we all fall asleep while watching TV?
inquiring minds want to know...