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  • Severe Brain Fog from Using Electronics - Seeking Help

One of the reasons for the change from CCFL to LED is the pursuit of beautiful color development.

A beautiful display requires high brightness, and dimming by flickering is used to improve the light concentration to prevent the display from bleeding (among other factors) and to achieve accurate color development.

It is technically possible to make LEDs that improve all of these elements, but they can make the beauty false, and there is no general demand for them, so they are rarely used in computers.

There are some products for gaming displays that improve some elements to improve recognition speed in competitions, but other elements tend to deteriorate because beauty is also pursued in games.

Although they are expensive, I recommend non-luminous RLCD or E-ink devices as a light countermeasure.

If you are considering purchasing one of these devices, be sure to see the actual product.

It is highly likely that light is the cause of your symptoms.

However, there is a lack of information about your symptoms, and I have not been able to conduct tests to confirm this, so there may be other causes.

In addition, these products are less aesthetically pleasing.

With current technology, it is difficult to achieve both a beautiful display and reduced eye strain.

I recommend that you make sure that they are effective for your symptoms and intended use before purchasing.

    evthelegend I purchased a m3 air recently in hopes that it might be okay and it does feel slightly better than my phone but I think I am going to have to end up buying an older device too.

    Yeah M3 air is not a good idea, I can't even use the M1 air or a 2018 Air for that long lol.

    The issue with modern Apple devices (and a surprisingly large amount of Windows laptops/Android devices too) is how many layers of post-processing are added to the internal display, it's like all of the edge enhancement and adaptive contrast settings on modern TVs but even worse because you don't even have a way to turn at least a few image enhancement settings off.

    For example, the feeling that large UI elements are floating in front of the screen in a 3D way, it's created by extra red and blue chromatic aberrations at object edges + very subtle white halos, that try to simulate the way your eyes focus, you don't realize how intense this effect is on Apple devices until you find a good screen and realize how flat it feels. Or when there's multiple repeating large objects on a page, and it feels like you can only bring one into "tunnel vision" focus but the other 2 are blurrier or you have to move your eyes to process the whole page or menu. On the other hand, on a good screen, it feels like you can essentially see everything on the screen at the same time. And, when I go back to a bad screen, all of the "anomalies" to the colors and shading is so visible to me now — those devices feel the exact same as they used to for me though, it's just way more obvious to me why those screens sucked.


    IMO here's what you should do:

    If you want something ASAP that works out-of-the-box and gives you a total reset of "what a screen can feel like", if you're able to, get an e-ink tablet before you start your device search.

    I highly recommend Boox Palma because the price point is reasonable, the touch screen is more responsive than others especially for typing on the virtual keyboard (I'm typing this post from it now at the same speed I would on a phone, no typos!!), and because it's pocketable you can find a ton of interesting use cases for it — instead of only being able to use a larger tablet in certain postures/locations.

    E-ink is not perfect, but trying e-ink is what finally gave me an idea of what types of visual patterns and information density I was totally not seeing at all in my bad devices… I started to figure out the precise things I needed in a good screen. Later, I found that one specific 2012 laptop which convinced me that a good backlit LCD is possible, and I finally feel like I'm in charge of my life again, and can comfortably get work done whenever I want. Now I need to find other good devices.

    So, after e-ink, then try to find a really old device that doesn't cause symptoms. (It's not just any old device, you still have to search) that lets you get a solid idea of a what a good backlit color screen feels like for you. Then, you can use a remote desktop app on that old device to be able to access a modern computer through it, so you're at least finally able to concentrate and work the way you want. This is currently what I'm doing for 7 months now, and I'm more productive than I've EVER been in my life.

    Now, the hard part, work up from there, and try out slightly newer and newer while keeping that idea of what a "good screen" feels like in mind. You might have to get creative, for example swapping a ton of different LCD panels into a laptop that has a user-replaceable screen. But in the meantime, you'll at least have something you can be productive on, and are still able to access present-day performance & apps by "using modern computers through the screen of an old one".

    By the way, I'm 22 years old, so compared to the generally older demographic of this forum I'm also able to provide some unique perspectives

      DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs
      Colors that put less strain on the eyes rarely change depending on the situation, but we recognize that the color of lighting that is easy to see tends to vary depending on the object.

      When reading or looking at small details, even people with weak eyes often prefer pure white light.

      We believe that this is because pure white light has a higher contrast, making it easier to recognize and read.

      On the other hand, when precision is not required, such as when understanding the surrounding environment, we recognize a tendency to prefer a yellow-white light that puts less strain on the eyes.

      There are other factors as well, such as color performance, but these are different factors from eye strain and will be excluded here.

      Easy to see (easy to identify) and light that puts less strain on the eyes are different, so there are seemingly contradictory situations where something is easy to read but also tires the eyes.

        Anesthesiologist Pseudo 3D displays and pseudo color displays give people a sense of discomfort when it comes to recognition.

        A characteristic of this is that the symptoms are limited to specific models or operating systems that have the technology installed.

        Also, in addition to the pseudo display features sometimes being caused by an OS version, OS display driver, or GPU hardware — there are other cases where these features are implemented within the LCD panel itself, such as in the TCON (timing controller) or LCD controller board.

        This means that even a RLCD connected to a "safe" GPU can still cause issues, if the RLCD just used a generic controller circuit without thinking about what it would modify or try to "enhance" in the video signal before it reaches the physical pixels.

        For example, Innolux (a LCD manufacturer that I have many issues with, across any device that uses their displays), that company has a patent that confirms that they do this:

        "The timing control and video output unit includes an image edge enhancement circuit configured for sharpening at least one edge of an image shown by the liquid crystal display, and a converter. The image edge enhancement circuit includes a color adjusting unit and a brightness comparison unit."

        DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

        Thank you so much for the suggestions! It’s really comforting to know you're 22—almost the same age as me.

        I’m going to try a e-ink device and hope it can finally put an end to the fog that’s been plaguing my life.

        I can only imagine what my life would be like if I could look at a screen and think normally, Im even having trouble typing this out right now lol

        You seem incredibly knowledgeable on this topic, so I was curious if you’ve looked into any potential solutions specifically for the eyes, rather than just focusing on the screen fix?

        Anesthesiologist

        I am going to purchase an E-ink device and see how I react.

        I hope you are right, this could change my life magnitudes

        You seem incredibly knowledgeable on this topic, so I was curious if you’ve looked into any potential solutions specifically for the eyes, rather than just focusing on the screen fix?

        I understand it could be a number of things, and that you have very limited info.

        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.

                    dev