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  • Severe Brain Fog from Using Electronics - Seeking Help

evthelegend static they look like paper but as soon as you start scrolling or refreshing the screen due to it being eink it'll have a flickery/laggy appearance. The boox Palma isn't terrible for eink.

There is no perfect display with current technology, and all products have some problems.

When e-ink displays are used without a backlight, there is no light problem like with books.

However, as DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs and jordan say, e-ink is not a perfect product either.

The problem with e-ink is not the light.

The main problem is the discomfort caused by the slow display speed.

This is caused by afterimages when rewriting images and flickering of the image.

For this reason, it is recommended to use e-ink mainly for still images, such as reading e-books, where the screen only rewrites when switching pages.

(This is also the reason why video use is limited on Amazon's Kindle)

This problem is more noticeable when there is screen movement, such as videos or scrolling in a browser.

When scrolling on HP, closing your eyes or looking away from the screen is a solution to the problem.

You may be disappointed that there is no perfect product.

However, the important point is that these problems are highly dependent on individual differences, so they may not occur.

The key to choosing is to try the product and see if the symptoms occur.

It is not possible to try all displays.

That's why it's important to try products in different categories, such as e-ink and RLCD.

The problem with e-ink is caused by its slow image display.

The technology to solve this problem is RLCD, which has a display speed equivalent to that of a general display.

RLCD also has problems such as poor color reproduction and a dark screen, but the biggest problem is that the panels are very difficult to obtain and very expensive.

I believe that there is no fundamental human solution to this problem.

The reason is that these problems are caused by stimuli that are inappropriate for humans.

Let's take the problem of light as an example.

If we exclude the last 50 years, we realize that humans basically look at a world illuminated by the sun or lighting (a world of reflected light).

Staring directly at a light source (a display) for hours is not something that happens in nature.

Is it abnormal to look at light and feel dazzled?

Is it strange to feel fatigued when looking at light that is stronger than you can tolerate (dazzling light) like this?

I believe that the solution to this problem is not for people to make healthy efforts, but for people to find appropriate technology.

    evthelegend It's not exactly like a book, more like reading particles of black sand through a couple of layers of glass. The background is gray instead of white, and instead of the ink appearing completely flat on paper, the black content hovers very slightly over the gray background, similar to the "simple segmented LCDs in" digital clocks or calculators. (However, the depth does not vary, meaning that all black content is still essentially at the same depth.)

    Also, when not using the super slow "HD" mode, there is only black and white and no gray, so it does use dithering patterns to simulate gray. Some people are sensitive to this, but to me this doesn't really cause strain per se, it just makes the image appear noticeably more grainy and "sand-like" compared to paper.

    E-ink flickers slightly when scrolling, but is still when there is no motion happening. For me though, I still find scrolling on e-ink wayyy more comfortable compared to a bad device, especially if the frontlight is off, although some others here have more problems with the flicker so your mileage may vary.

    However, recent e-ink devices like the Palma have an annoying "auto-clean" mode enabled by default that continues flickering even when still (in order to clear out the ghosting…).

    This auto-clean feature actually does bother me, but fortunately you can turn it off by disabling "Display Enhancement" in optimization settings and setting "Anti-Flicker" to the lowest value (counterintuitively, setting anti-flicker to the highest value actually causes more flicker!) Note that you must change that setting for each app -- it will sometimes reset on a new app that's installed, and you have to set it again for that app.

    Currently, Boox Palma (and Tab Ultra… but I prefer the Palma as its screen is crisper and the touchscreen is much more accurate) are some of my most comfortable screens, and the only comfortable "modern devices" I have, so despite the flaws I'd still say it's a good starting point and definitely something that will give you a totally new experience compared to what you're familiar with. If e-ink works for you, you'll start noticing some visual patterns that you never even knew you could see before 🙂

    It's awesome that we're around the same age, I previously felt so alone on this forum until now, in my opinion our generation is even more impacted by this because we weren't lucky enough to have already finished school/college before these bad screens started taking over everything.

    Would you be interested in chatting more on e.g. discord or instagram DMs? I have a lot of knowledge and strategies I can share about how I was finally able to get my life back after getting totally messed up by bad screens


    P.S. By the way, I just found one rather unique battery-powered portable 12" monitor I have (that I literally forgot I even owned until yesterday!) that is strangely comfortable so far.

    I'll use it for a week before making any real claims, to see if I can actually be consistently productive on this, but so far in the first 2 days it's the only monitor I've used that even comes CLOSE to feeling similar to the one "perfect laptop" I have and "already working pretty well out of the box without weird tweaks".

    It is already more comfortable than all of my other [external monitors] -- even my ancient 2000s era ones that still cause brain fog for me -- and is also PWM-free at max brightness. Unsure if it has FRC or not. (If it does, it's probably a more primitive type of FRC since I don't immediately notice flickering).

    I wrote this whole post on it and it felt "similar to my one good laptop", nothing else has made me feel this way before! I am really hoping it stays like this!

    Will update more about this later, if it works for me, I will post about the monitor and it could possibly be a great option since it can be connected to any computer of course. Well, maybe not M1 Macs, since they're known to generate weird HDMI output… but the 8th gen i5 UHD 620 system I'm trying it with seems to output a clean signal. Cautiously optimistic.

      evthelegend I can surely relate to you, but you are so young to have these issues I would think. When I was your age, I have never had any issues with electronics whatsoever. Then concept of PWM appeared in my late 20s, and then other things like temporal dithering which was new to me. Whilst working at corporate job, I and some of my colleagues had headaches, but then it was hard to attribute it to the computer or screen. Now however after covid, for me, to be absolutely honest - every single machine regardless if it causes eye strain or not, will lead to brain fog, culminating in some anxiety attack. Especially when macs started to cause pain. Before that macs where actually a solution to a windows problem - multitasking, wasting time, poor focus, gaming and exhaustion. Now windows is a solution to an apple problem, but all the past symptoms are coming with it too. Its a total deadlock. And I did outgrow linux, still use as a laptop OS, but over the monitor, again it is bad on one machine, good on another etc. Its all fishy whichever way you look at it. Only solution I can see is - using computers only for doing specific work, including coming to this forum to make a comment. But in any circumstances, you should limit the use of time where focus is not controlled by you, which usually starts with passive activities. It literally fries the brain. But because it is normalized now, it is hard to look around and say damn something is off here. But I guess your brain never lies.

        Donux yep, in a certain way this issue has kind of been a blessing (although still a much bigger curse) because its forced me to put down all social media apps, tikTok, YouTube, video games ETC. and has given me a ton of time to work on things that actually matter in real life. I have been completely free of time wasted on the internet. but where it truly does suck is when you have productive things to do and it completely handicaps you trying to do them. for instance my job it is virtually impossible to do it unless I use a device of some sort and for what I do I need a LED screen and it heavily impacts the performance of my job. currently typing this out with my screen tuned off and just using my keyboard, symptoms are not here anymore lol

          evthelegend Crazy age, I can feel you. But maybe this is a sign to change behaviour and engage in mindful computing. Old job arrangements could be re-negotiated or changed. Old habits could be adapted too. This does not mean there is no tech problem, but it is definitely not a single factor at play.

            DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

            I don't think the downsides of E-ink will affect me as I typically like to spend my time reading and checking numbers on things and everything that's productive or fun for me doesn't really need a high refresh rate.

            after all these years of having this sensitivity - movies, shows and short form content is pretty easy to avoid since my brain is basically trained not to want it because I know how I will feel after and it does suck because I am missing out a part of modern entertainment but at the same time it is a blessing because I have saved so much time and instead did productive things.

            I am likely going to buy the boox Palma as it seems to be the most common device recommended in this forum.

            I will update you on how it feels to use, I am hoping that it is the first device that I can use without feeling like trash.

            currently typing on my Mac with the screen off lol and just blindly typing on my keyboard and I must say the symptoms are disappearing. unless it is a placebo this confirms that my symptoms are indeed from LED screens rather than EMF radiation like I had originally had thought.

            sadly there are several use cases in my daily life and job where a e-ink device will not cut it because of the color limitations and details as well as general usability and the fact that it seems like they don't have any smartphone e-ink devices (although some are not far off) is kind of disappointing.

            this really is a modern day disability lol

            will try to purchase a couple monitors too in hopes of finding one that works for me too.

              Donux

              yep, am trying my best

              this issue has truly changed my life more than I could ever imagine

              jordan this is dope, also expensive but it is well worth it.

              likely will buy it or something similar as I don't know how else I could get computer work done.

              Anesthesiologist makes perfect sense, never in human history have we been staring at bright lights all day.

              I will give you an update once I purchase an e-ink device

              and maybe an RLCD if the e ink solves the issues

              As a first step, the boox Palma is a relatively inexpensive product and is the one I would most recommend.

              And while you may have problems with the Palma, information about the symptoms will help us give you more advice on the appropriate technique and product recommendations.

              evthelegend This was me about 10 years ago. I switched to Mac, and within days I was getting headaches, and 'brain fog' after only 5-10minutes use. I put it down to "it must just be a Mac thing" and tried to ignore it. Unfortunately there isn't much resistance training you can do to help alleviate the symptoms. IMO a bad stimulus is a bad stimulus.

              It might be worth trying an older Windows device for a few weeks and see if that gives you any relief.

              It is also worth noting that Temporal Dithering uses flicker to create the illusion of more colours on screen than is actually possible to display. When we stare at a desktop/laptop using Temporal Dithering, it is relying on our flicker threshold and perception to fuse the colours together to see the intermediate value. Any flicker is bad, and while PWM now has mainstream attention, other things such as Temporal Dithering (which is ubiquitous now and virtually on all modern devices) has no off switch yet. Macs are notorious for heavy dithering. In my case, a good monitor and a good PC can be made bad just by simply installing a Linux distro. Same hardware, different OS, and sudden onset of symptoms.

              evthelegend I am likely going to buy the boox Palma as it seems to be the most common device recommended in this forum.

              I will update you on how it feels to use, I am hoping that it is the first device that I can use without feeling like trash.

              by the way, make sure for your initial test to not use the frontlight feature, just natural light — in addition, use it either with the lights at your place off with only sunlight coming in, or use it outside.

              since there's a big chance your place uses generic LED lightbulbs with 100% flicker and fuzzy color rendering, that can definitely affect readability of the Palma screen so natural light will give you the best impression of how it feels.

              finally, remember to keep turning off "DIsplay Enhancement" in the refresh settings for each app you launch on it

              evthelegend Your brain fog symptoms sound similar to mine. I don't know that we have exactly the same issues, but I've been able to link mine to invisible flicker and posted all of my research at www.flickersense.org. I'm a scientist and posted a scientific literature review and my extensive measurements of light and screen flicker correlating with my symptoms. While I'm waiting for safe tech to be developed, I've gotten so sensitive that I've mostly started to learn to use VoiceOver technology with the "screen curtain" on and dim-it sheets hiding the residual light from my phone along with a bluetooth keyboard. So the phone basically becomes a talking touchpad. It's a huge pain, but any days I can stay off of the screens entirely are good ones and help with recovery. I've also hooked up an external keyboard and mouse to the laptop and sit far away, often turned away from the screen while typing - I'm starting to learn to just use a screen reader with that too, but the learning curve is steeper than with the phone. I'm so sorry you're so young and having to deal with this too. I feel grateful I had as many years as I did before LED lights became prevalent and screen flickering worsened.

                jen

                thanks for the reply, it feels good to be heard.

                I ordered a ccfl monitor because I was recommended it many times, would the flicker be different than led?

                your website is awesome, only problem is I can't concentrate for more than a minute when looking at a screen.

                have u tested different monitors? I feel like im sensitive to some part of the led light itself, whenever I look at it it feels like im staring into a flashlight. have you looked into anything like this?

                • jen replied to this.

                  evthelegend I totally understand not being able to look at the screen. I have a Kobo eInk eReader that's fine for me for reading using it's main functions which are all static displays. I like that it connects with the Pocket App, so if I save a webpage to Pocket, I can read it on the Kobo in a static form. This works for my FlickerSense.org website, except some of the figures don't come through well.

                  I don't have good display recommendations - nothing has worked for me yet. I can't even tolerate dynamically-refreshing eInk - the version I tried had visible flicker of the pixels. And scrolling on anything is bad for me. I'm also really bothered by screen elements flashing with each keystroke as I type, which seems to be happening more with modern software.

                  dev