Yet more misleading reporting from LTT. (And still no transparent issue tracker to report these things.)

[moatmote]

The recent video on the Dasung E Ink monitor starts with a misleading intro that heavily implies permanent eye damage might result from using traditional monitors:

Quote

Your eyes are delicate instruments. One wrong move and you could damage them for life, which makes you kind of wonder: "Could blasting them with light from our monitors be hurting them? Is there a better solution?"

This does two things:

1. It sets the tone of the video as either "This display, due to the nature of E Ink, may be the aforementioned 'solution'. Let's find out if it is." which could also be interpreted as "Dasung claims that this display, due to the nature of E Ink, is the aforementioned 'solution'. Let's test that claim."
2. It suggests that there may be a link between light-emitting displays and permanent eye damage.

Despite this, for the bulk of the remainder of the video, the claim above is never really put to the test until this chapter at the very end (aptly labeled "Contesting their claims"):

Quote

I want to contest some of their claims as they're a bit spurious. They claim things like "It's good for people with myopia"—which is nearsightedness. There is no benefit to using an E Ink monitor if you're nearsighted. They also claim that it's good for digital eye strain, but there's no conclusive evidence that E Ink will help. The issue of digital eye strain comes from not refocusing your eyes and staring at the same thing for a long, long time. E Ink doesn't change that. It's stll a monitor. It's stil not very far away. Your eyes are still going to get strained. But, a big part of the strain is A: the lack of focusing, and B: that people forget to blink as much; and then your eyes aren't lubricated and they dry out.

However, the well-informed or critically thinking among you may have already caught the problem with this section: It doesn't actually answer the questions they asked at the begining. Are traditional monitors permanently damaging your vision and is E Ink the "better solution"? All they've done here is establish that E Ink doesn't help with nearsightedness and digital eye strain.

 

The problem is that most people aren't going to catch this distinction. To most people watching this, the intro told them that something about light-emitting displays could permanently damage their eyes, and then asked if E Ink was the solution to this. Then, the chapter quoted above answered that question with a definitive "No, it's not just light-emitting displays. E Ink is not the 'solution'.", while talking a whole lot about "digital eye strain" all of a sudden. This directly correlates (in most people's minds) "digital eye strain" with "permanent eye damage", which is extremely misleading, as there is zero evidence that supports any correlation between the two.

 

Now to see if this post becomes popular enough that this is seen as an issue worth addressing. I'll end this with a quote of my own words, since even after all the recent controversy, a popularity contest (either here, on other socials, or in YouTube comments) is still the only way for your "community" to get issues in front of staff post-publishing.

 

Quote

The "ECC Squad" is so out of touch with what is actually needed here.

Reports should be publicly visible and it should be clear whether or not a report has been appropriately addressed, either via staff response justifying why it isn't an error, or by taking the proper steps to address the error.

Otherwise we have no way to measure how much action is actually being taken vs. how much actionable feedback is being submitted (AKA zero accountability).

tl;dr open a public issue tracker.

 

---

 

Edit because people love to read what they want to read instead of what I wrote:

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

it suggests that there might be an extremely common misconception that light-emitting displays cause eye damage. i've heard this at every step of the way towards my career in IT, and at every corner of my IT career. there exists this myth that the fact the display outputs light is the sole reason why displays cause eye strain (and as a result, a potential for hurting your eyesight)

1 hour ago, TetraSky said:

Oh my God how nitpicky can someone be...

IT WAS RETHORICAL. Not the god damn main thesis of the video as what you seems to be thinking.

You can hurt your eyes in many different ways. Just because they say this in the intro, doesn't mean they meant to say in regard to light from monitors hurting them (strain them maybe, but not hurt them)

How have you entirely missed the point? I never claimed that LTT claimed that light from monitors permanently hurt your eyes. I said that the statement sets an expectation for an answer in the video. And by not actually directly addressing those "what if"s in the conclusion, and instead answering a slightly different question, it's very easy for the layman to conflate the two.

 

After watching the intro, it's not hard to imagine that many people will be thinking "Oh I wonder if light from monitors is actually a problem that could lead to permanent vision damage and if E Ink is the answer. Let me keep watching to find out!" And upon hearing "E Ink still causes eye strain" at the end, reaching the conclusion "Oh they said E Ink still causes eye strain because of <stuff about focusing>, so the light wasn't the culprit and both technologies could lead to permanent damage to my vision because they both cause digital eye strain."

 

Is that a logically sound conclusion? No. Is that the conclusion this video baits people towards? Yes.

[Skipple]

You're being nitpicky in my opinion. 

 

I'll end this with a quote of my own words:

 

Quote

You're being nitpicky in my opinion. 

 

[hmfaysal]

Steve, is that you?

[manikyath]

12 minutes ago, moatmote said:

It suggests that there may be a link between light-emitting displays and permanent eye damage.

it suggests that there might be an extremely common misconception that light-emitting displays cause eye damage. i've heard this at every step of the way towards my career in IT, and at every corner of my IT career. there exists this myth that the fact the display outputs light is the sole reason why displays cause eye strain (and as a result, a potential for hurting your eyesight)

 

the thing here is that near-sightedness is *THE* problem to solve among computer users, supposedly caused by the strain of using a display. could they have framed that better? yes. but that's not the point of the video to begin with. the point of the video was to talk about E-ink displays.

 

in other words, you're looking for a problem where there isnt one. 

 

and your opinion on the ECC squad.. is incredibly misguided. it's not a replacement for community feedback, it's not a means to ignore what the general public has to say. it's a selection of people otherwise not tied to LMG, but are proven to be notably knowledgeable about a certain field, who get to see essentially a 'pre-release' version of the video in case some finer details get missed during production. there's this problem with humans, where we often dont catch our own mistakes. that is the only thing this is meant to resolve. someone who wasnt there when the video was made gets to see it with a fresh mind, and will be much more 'sensitive' to the potential detail errors.

 

as for openly posting the feedback from ECC squad.. to a degree i agree with you, but the problem here is that the idea is these people get early access to fix things before they get released (that's the goal of this whole mess, isnt it?) so if they would be discussing it on a publicly visible platform.. that sort of gives away the video. it's also largely "not the point" to just have an issue tracker of how many errors were caught during production.. because holy heck, there'd probably be hundreds per day. that's what procedures are for: to catch the mistakes humans are inevitably going to make. it might be interesting to have some form of metric of how many mistakes make it into released videos.. but anything that gets caught before that is honestly only proof that the procedures work?

 

i'm a battery technician. i probably make a douzen stupid-ass mistakes every day, so do all of my colleagues. but the procedures in place mean that only a VERY small amount of those mistakes make it out the door, and turn into RMA's. (and again.. humans, perfection is impossible)

 

and because quoting yourself is now apparently a thing, i'll end with one too. (i actually went to dig into my post history for this)

 

Quote

quoting myself:

 

[IkeaGnome]

How about we open a public issue tracker on this thread.

48 minutes ago, moatmote said:

E Ink

Should be E-ink if you're going with Dasung's marketing.

 

None of your quotes have time stamps, so those of us that haven't watched the video have no easy way to make sure what you quoted was actually said in the video.

 

48 minutes ago, moatmote said:

light-emitting

You don't need that hyphen.

 

48 minutes ago, moatmote said:

This directly correlates (in most people's minds) "digital eye strain" with "permanent eye damage",

Source?

 

48 minutes ago, moatmote said:

post-publishing

You sure do love hyphens.

[Tanaz]

I don't know if the monitor can give you permanent eye damage but this post has given me permanent brain damage.

[TetraSky]

Oh my God how nitpicky can someone be...

IT WAS RETHORICAL. Not the god damn main thesis of the video as what you seems to be thinking.

You can hurt your eyes in many different ways. Just because they say this in the intro, doesn't mean they meant to say in regard to light from monitors hurting them (strain them maybe, but not hurt them). How MAD are you at LTT for even going that far in your willful misunderstanding of the video?

[BeefSupreme]

This guy was obviously just waiting to type his thesis no matter what LTT uploaded today

[moatmote]

40 minutes ago, manikyath said:

it suggests that there might be an extremely common misconception that light-emitting displays cause eye damage. i've heard this at every step of the way towards my career in IT, and at every corner of my IT career. there exists this myth that the fact the display outputs light is the sole reason why displays cause eye strain (and as a result, a potential for hurting your eyesight)

31 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Oh my God how nitpicky can someone be...

IT WAS RETHORICAL. Not the god damn main thesis of the video as what you seems to be thinking.

You can hurt your eyes in many different ways. Just because they say this in the intro, doesn't mean they meant to say in regard to light from monitors hurting them (strain them maybe, but not hurt them)

How have you entirely missed the point? I never claimed that LTT claimed that light from monitors permanently hurt your eyes. I said that the statement sets an expectation for an answer in the video. And by not actually directly addressing those "what if"s in the conclusion, and instead answering a slightly different question, it's very easy for the layman to conflate the two.

 

After watching the intro, it's not hard to imagine that many people will be thinking "Oh I wonder if light from monitors is actually a problem that could lead to permanent vision damage and if E Ink is the answer. Let me keep watching to find out!" And upon hearing "E Ink still causes eye strain" at the end, reaching the conclusion "Oh they said E Ink still causes eye strain because of <stuff about focusing>, so the light wasn't the culprit and both technologies could lead to permanent damage to my vision because they both cause digital eye strain."

 

Is that a logically sound conclusion? No. Is that the conclusion this video baits people towards? Yes.

[Skipple]

4 minutes ago, moatmote said:

And by not actually directly addressing those "what if"s in the conclusion, and instead answering a slightly different question, it's very easy for the layman to conflate the two.

I think the only person that was confused by the purpose of the video was you, my friend. I'm fairly certain even a little old layman, as you would put it, can follow the logical narrative that the writer was laying out before us.

[Eaglerino]

I feel like the people who write posts like this are the same people who complain they have to write 500 words for a paper

[moatmote]

30 minutes ago, manikyath said:

the thing here is that near-sightedness is *THE* problem to solve among computer users, supposedly caused by the strain of using a display.

That's been debunked as well FYI. There is literally 0 evidence of any long term effects of staring at displays at any distance from any recent studies.

 

30 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

You don't need that hyphen.

As I've said before, if you're going to follow in my pedantry, at least be correct.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode

https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/compound-adjectives/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode

 

[moatmote]

13 minutes ago, Caroline said:

I remember when they said CRTs caused radiation poisoning due to prolongated exposure lol. Monitors that cause eye damage is just a trendy term to help sell prescription glasses nowadays.

 

I mean LED displays certainly burn your retinas with all the brightness, but not sure if that would cause permanent eye damage.

It wouldn't. My point isn't that LTT made any incorrect claims. It's that the video is structured in a way that, while technically logically sound, can easily be interpreted as "digital eye strain can cause permanent damage" which is absolutely false. 

[IkeaGnome]

3 minutes ago, moatmote said:

As I've said before, if you're going to follow in my pedantry, at least be correct.

You've said that before? I don't see a quote for it

[Skipple]

7 minutes ago, moatmote said:

There is literally 0 evidence of any long term effects of staring at displays at any distance from any recent studies.

Here's an article from the American Optometric Association that directly contradicts you. It was literally the first result on Google.

Quote

In fact, high levels of screen time on smart devices (i.e. looking at a smart phone) is associated with around a 30% higher risk of myopia and, when combined with excessive computer use, that risk rose to around 80%.

No offense but I'll tend to trust them over somebody here. 

[Skipple]

1 minute ago, IkeaGnome said:

You've said that before? I don't see a quote for it

WE NEED MORE QUOTES. MORE. QUOTES.

[divito]

I'm hoping this is a troll, because you're emulating GN's pedantic nature excellently. 

 

It's an LTT video; not every statement of the script is a thesis that needs supporting. There are literary devices used all over any other Youtube video that are far more problematic if you're being this exacting regarding certain statements.

 

10 minutes ago, moatmote said:

It wouldn't. My point isn't that LTT made any incorrect claims. It's that the video is structured in a way that, while technically logically sound, can easily be interpreted as "digital eye strain can cause permanent damage" which is absolutely false. 

And yet myself, with no agenda, didn't interpret that at all. If you're relying on your personal and subjective inference instead of an actual quote, you're doing it wrong.

[AbsolutelyNot]

Quote

16 minutes ago, Skipple said:

WE NEED MORE QUOTES. MORE. QUOTES.

- Skipple

- Michael Scott

[Lomac]

2 minutes ago, AbsolutelyNot said:

- Michael Scott

- Wayne Gretzky

[moatmote]

38 minutes ago, Skipple said:

Here's an article from the American Optometric Association that directly contradicts you. No offense but I'll tend to trust them over somebody here. 

From that article:

Quote

Even though the tendency to develop myopia may be inherited, its actual development may be affected by how a person uses his or her eyes. Individuals who spend considerable time reading, working at a computer, playing video games or doing other intense close visual work may be more likely to develop myopia. In fact, high levels of screen time on smart devices (i.e. looking at a smart phone) is associated with around a 30% higher risk of myopia and, when combined with excessive computer use, that risk rose to around 80%.

And

Quote

• People who do an excessive amount of near-vision work may experience a false or "pseudo" myopia. Their blurred distance vision is caused by overuse of the eyes' focusing mechanism. After long periods of near work, their eyes are unable to refocus to see clearly in the distance. Clear distance vision usually returns after resting the eyes. However, constant visual stress may lead to a permanent reduction in distance vision over time.

 

You do realize that they're talking about any kind of long-term work that requires focusing on close objects, right? Phones and computers just happen to be some of the most common examples these days. They specifically mentioned reading as a potential cause as well.

 

This isn't digital eye strain.

 

Furthermore, most prolonged usage of screens (and books) is done indoors, and recent studies have shown that the lack of sunlight plays a large role in the development of myopia:

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8409785/

https://www.aao.org/education/editors-choice/sunlight-exposure-reduces-myopia-in-children

[Skipple]

3 minutes ago, moatmote said:

You do realize that they're talking about any kind of long-term work that requires focusing on close objects, right? Phones and computers just happen to be some of the most common examples these days.

Perhaps you should be clearer then when you say:

35 minutes ago, moatmote said:

There is literally 0 evidence of any long term effects of staring at displays at any distance from any recent studies.

because....

36 minutes ago, moatmote said:

if you're going to follow in my pedantry, at least be correct.

if you are going to lead in your pedantry, at least be precise. 

[moatmote]

1 minute ago, Skipple said:

Perhaps you should be clearer then when you say 

If you are going to lead in your pedantry, at least be precise. 

*There is literally 0 evidence of any long term effects of specifically staring at displays and not other objects at any distance from any recent studies.

 

The words were implied, but I'm not above admitting to what undoubtedly could've been worded better, unlike the army of ltt apologists.

[Blue4130]

4 minutes ago, moatmote said:

*There is literally 0 evidence of any long term effects of specifically staring at displays and not other objects at any distance from any recent studies.

 

The words were implied, but I'm not above admitting to what undoubtedly could've been worded better, unlike the army of ltt apologists.

According to that article, staring at *anything* (this includes but is not limited to screens) can cause an increase in cases of myopia.

 

You must have a gigantic collection of nits because you are king in picking them.

[EpochMedia]

This is the most pedantic topic I've seen on the internet in awhile and that's saying something. 

[Arika]

Oh man, it's this the kind of post we're going to get after every ltt video now?

 

2 hours ago, BeefSupreme said:

This guy was obviously just waiting to type his thesis no matter what LTT uploaded today

Basically this.