Tablet Blue Light Screen Exposure May Impede Our Sleep Patterns

Having trouble getting to sleep after a late-night reading session on your tablet? It might be more than the story floating around in your head. Evening exposure to blue light from tablets may suppress our bodies' production of melatonin, which can cause major sleep problems.

Fortunately, Amazon has a solution. The company is rolling out a new feature to Fire Tablets called Blue Shade, which "uses specialized filters to limit exposure to blue light" to give you a more comfortable night time reading experience, and — hopefully — a better night's sleep. The feature can be turned on or off with a single tap, and also lets you lower the display brightness to an "ultra-low level," if you prefer. Fire tablet owners can fine-tune the color settings to their personal preference, and the device will "intelligently" adjust the filtering so that blue light is always suppressed. A new feature called Activity Center, for instance, lets parents see how much time their kids spend playing games, watching videos, and reading on the device. Parents can also view their kids' browser history to see what they're looking at on the Web, as well as specific apps, books, and videos their child accessed. This feature is designed for kids who have outgrown Amazon's FreeTime parental controls, but still need monitoring. Have you experienced this late night phenoniom? Share your experience with the Smartphone and Tablet Emporium.