That said, taking a break from screens at night is probably a good idea, especially for kids. Podcasts and audiobooks are a great way to unwind without screens. And if you must use your smartphone in bed, follow this achingly simple rule: Stick to fun stuff and avoid anything stressful.

However, this post isn’t going to take up that debate today. Instead, we are going to showcase five incidents where a body camera saved an officer by exonerating them from false charges or questions into their choice of actions.

“Sleep and circadian responses to light are dependent upon intensity (the brighter the light, the bigger the response),” says Peirson.

Dig deeper, though, and you will find the people in the trial were asked to read for four hours before bedtime on an iPad at maximum screen brightness.

This Cochrane Library review examined several studies and found “no clinically meaningful difference” between normal lenses and blue-light filtering lenses. The American Academy of Ophthalmology and the College of Optometrists in the UK say there is no evidence that blue light from screens is damaging our eyes, and neither recommends blue-light-blocking glasses.

“The evidence for smartphone use near bedtime affecting sleep and circadian rhythms isn’t great,” Stuart Peirson, a professor of circadian neuroscience at Oxford University, told WIRED via email.

This study of blue-light filter applications suggests they don’t improve sleep either, and dark mode may not be as good for your eyes as you think. So what are we supposed to do?

“A much greater issue is likely to be the content viewed,” says Peirson. “Reading work emails relating to impending deadlines is clearly going to cause anxiety, and anxiety is strongly related to insomnia.”

There is a lot of discussion around body cameras being used in law enforcement. With more police departments implementing cameras on their officers, the conclusive answer if the cameras have a positive effect is still up for debate.  One study on the Phoenix Police Department concluded that most officers were reluctant to wear body cameras but that the mandatory distribution of the equipment throughout the patrol resulted in many positive outcomes including better productivity from officers and fewer complaints against officers.

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Many people sleep with their phones within reach. Some even allow notifications and messages to disrupt their sleep. If you don’t silence your gadgets at night, they will likely disturb you.

A whole industry has sprung from concerns about blue-light exposure. You can buy blue light-blocking glasses, filters, and special light bulbs, not to mention software options, including dark modes. But do any of them actually help, or is this just more scaremongering designed to sell snake-oil tech?

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In light of these accusations, the Ellis County Sheriff’s Office released a two-hour body cam video that showed the entire interaction between Sherita and the officer. The video shows a perfectly routine interaction where the officer pulls Sherita over, gives her a sobriety test, and books her into the Ellis County Jail.

The police department stood behind their officer and released the video as they believe that their officer used the appropriate amount of force. In this case, they were able to clearly show the public the whole story and take care of any concerns. The simple case of the matter was that the girl was endangering both herself and the public, and the officer did his best to rectify the situation.

Another issue with the way we use screens is that we tend to stare intently, blinking less frequently, which can cause our eyes to dry out. Whether you call it computer vision syndrome or digital eye strain, most of us have suffered from itchy or red eyes, blurred vision, headaches, or neck or back aches at some point, usually after working on a computer. Experts continue to recommend the "20-20-20" rule: Every 20 minutes, try to look at an object at least 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds.

As with most things in life, balance is key. Ultimately, you should avoid bright light before bed, but the blue light emitted from a dimmed smartphone screen or TV is not worth worrying about.

Sherita had hired an attorney, who later apologized for his client’s false claims. Had the video footage not been available to credit the officer’s side of events, this story could have played out quite differently.

The city of Count Chattanooga in Tennessee had a case in 2018 where a mom accused a police officer of using unnecessary force when arresting her 14-year-old daughter. She wrote a Facebook post, and included video footage of his rough treatment. The mom claimed to take the daughter to the hospital after, stating that the police handcuffs had injured her hands.

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History ofpolicebody cameras

This story does not have a happy ending. Despite the officers attempts to diffuse the situation, Johnson raised his gun to the officers, forcing them to respond with force. The shot turned out to be fatal.  However, the body camera footage that was released clearly showed that the officers did not open fire until they absolutely had to.

The Farmington Police Department was made aware of the post and was able to access the officer’s body camera to get a better understanding of what happened. The department released the video to the public which shows the officer arresting the intoxicated man, who had been loitering in the Dollar Store, when he fell and hit his head (the officer attempted to prevent the fall). The officer then took care of the man and called him an ambulance.

This last case gives an insight into the different kind of situations that law enforcement officers run into every single day.

They may theoretically work, says Peirson, but the evidence is not straightforward. He highlighted this review, which suggests a positive influence on sleep latency for people with sleep disorders, jet lag, and variable shift work. But he says the problem with most studies is that the actual light exposure of the participants is not measured, and the wavelength that these filters block is often poorly described.

Blue light has a shorter wavelength (between 400 and 495 nanometers) than red light (620 to 750 nanometers). But different filters block different wavelengths, making them tricky to compare. Peirson says cutting off longer wavelengths can be more effective at reducing light exposure to our circadian rhythm (our natural sleep/wake cycle), but can also impact visual function, making it harder to see.

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We also know that doomscrolling on social media can have negative effects, including less and poorer quality sleep. Getting too engrossed in anything on your phone makes it all too easy to stay up later than you should.

In a case of simple misunderstandings and assumptions, in August 2017, a motorist accused an officer in Detroit of stealing $800 from his glove box. During a traffic stop, the officer searched the man’s vehicle, and the man claimed that the money was then missing.

The amount of blue light that smartphone screens emit is relatively tiny, and there is mounting evidence that claims about their impact on sleep are overblown. In a recent review of 11 studies from around the world, published in the journal Sleep Medicine Reviews, as reported by the Times, researchers found no evidence that screen light in the hour before bed makes it tougher to drift off.

You’ve likely heard that blue light from smartphone screens may be keeping you awake at night. While the sun is our main source of blue light, the rise of LEDs and screen use exposes us to artificial blue light in the evening. Blue light suppresses melatonin, a hormone we naturally produce to help us drop off at night. Therefore, blue light can make it harder to fall asleep. Right? Well, maybe not.

Kids are more sensitive to blue light, so any potential impact could hit them harder, but another clue that blue light may not be the issue is the differing impact of interactive screen versus passive screen use. Chilling out in front of the TV, or even reading on your phone, is more relaxing than playing a video game or messaging in a group chat, even though blue light exposure is the same.

While it can be very distressing to lose money, this case would have been difficult to resolve without the body camera footage and an officer’s integrity would have been questioned for no reason.

Some argue that screens are a bigger risk because we stare directly at them for hours, but modern smartphones have adaptive brightness to reduce the glare in darkened rooms. Few of us crank our screen brightness to maximum and leave it there.

This is a powerful video that shows a side of police officers that the public might not get to see that often. One officer was harmed, and they were all in danger, but they did not immediately shoot. Even though the immediate use of force would have been well justified, the officer attempts to diffuse the situation in an extremely high-risk situation

The Facebook video had been “viewed more than 100,000 times and portrayed only part of the story.” The Chattanooga police released the officer’s body cam footage to clarify the entire situation. The young girl, who was sitting behind the wheel of a stalled vehicle in a handicap zone of a high traffic area, refused to turn off the car and leave it after the police officer instructed her to do so. She did not have a license, and the officer had to physically remove her from the car and charge her with resisting.

While blue light has the potential to harm us, it can also be good for us. One study exposed students to either artificial blue light or warm white light for an hour each morning and found that blue light didn’t just reduce melatonin levels; several students also reported higher alertness, positive mood, and visual comfort.

The oft-cited 2014 study from Harvard that kicked off the blue-light screen panic remains the best evidence for light-emitting devices affecting sleep. It found screen use before bed delayed the onset of sleep by an average of 10 minutes. It’s not much, but any increase in sleep latency (the time it takes to fall asleep) is unwelcome.

If you are concerned about getting a good night’s sleep, establishing a bedtime routine is crucial. The intervention with the strongest evidence base is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), according to sleep expert Sophie Bostock. She was part of the team that worked on Sleepio, which cured my insomnia. It’s a six-week course that combines various simple techniques:

In a case that made national headlines, in May of 2018, a woman accused a state trooper in Texas of sexually assaulting her during a traffic stop. The woman, 37-year-old Sherita Dixon-Cole, accused the officer of offering to let her go with no charges, after a failed sobriety test, if she performed sexual favors. She also claimed that after she declined, the officer proceeded to sexually assault her after she said no.

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Another example of body camera videos that saved a police officer’s reputation occurred in Farmington in February 2017. A bystander posted on Facebook a photo of “Officer Hunter Weaver standing over a man who was lying on the ground in a parking lot next to Weaver’s patrol car.” The post claimed that the officer had used excessive force and beat the man.

The PD responded to the Facebook post and clarified the situation, and the Facebook post was eventually taken down. The department “feared that the post could hurt Weaver’s reputation and damaged the relationship between the police department and the community.” This is exactly why body cameras can change the way a story is being told. A passerby can see an interaction and not understand the full situation, creating a narrative about the conversation that is false or misconstrued.

Pros and cons ofpolicebody cameras Essay

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As technology changes, policing changes with it. Law enforcement agencies will continue to adopt and modify their technologies for the sake of protecting the public. It is unclear whether body cameras will stand the test of time and still be around in a few years but for now, they have done some good for some officers.

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Policebody cameras pros and cons

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Body cam footage from an incident that occurred in March 2015 was released to the public by the Cleveland Police Department. In the footage, two officers respond to a call, and climb up the stairs to Theodore Johnson’s apartment. Almost immediately, one of the officers is shot by Theodore. As the footage unfolds, both patrolmen plead with Mr. Johnson to disarm. Theodore keeps asking the officers to kill him, and Officer David Muniz says, “I know you shot me, but I’m not going to shoot you.”

While screens are getting brighter, they are still relatively weak compared to the sun. Even LED bulbs are much brighter than screens. If you are concerned about melatonin suppression, the evidence suggests electrical lighting in the home is more dangerous than screens.

However, while the blue light from smartphone screens is unlikely to be bright enough to cause significant issues, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to tuck up with a cozy smartphone at bedtime.

Bostock also says that if you get plenty of natural light during the day, your body clock will be less sensitive to the effects of light at night. A morning walk or coffee in the garden before you start work can help get your circadian clock on track.

The officer had his body camera on the entire time, and after the PD showed the video to the man in which it can clearly be seen that the officer does not take any money, he dropped the case. He said that he had believed the cop to take it after the car search, but after viewing the video, he believed it could have been the woman he had previously had in his car.