Seeing Red: How Red Light Mode on Phones Helps With Sleep

By: Kevin Modeszto | Publish Date: April 10th, 2026

There is a very large group of people that fall under the term “college student”, especially at a campus such as Kean University that’s known for its diversity. However, there are two issues that virtually all college students face at one point: phone addiction and sleep deprivation. Over the past month, I have learned a trick to help with both. 

I always try to go to sleep around 10 p.m., which usually results in staying up another half an hour on my phone and then tossing and turning for an hour, until I actually fall asleep around 11:30 p.m. That is, until I started putting my phone on red light setting about an hour before bed. This feature turns your entire phone screen to a blaring red light.  

This helps for two reasons: One, it eliminates blue light which has been proven to disrupt sleep, and two, it makes my phone less appealing to look at. Looking at my phone with all the lights and colors is a lot of fun; looking at a sea of red is not as much fun. 

For us college students looking for every extra little bit of sleep, this is a trick that can help you get the little extra you need to get through the day. I went from tossing and turning for an hour to falling asleep within 15 minutes because of this trick. No longer was I cutting into my precious eight-hour sleep schedule by staring at my phone in bed. Now, I am compelled to put the addictive device away quickly. 

To enable red light on an iPhone: 

• Go to Settings 

• Scroll to Accessibility 

• Click on Display & Text Size 

• Toggle “Color Filters” ON 

• Select “Color Tint“ 

• Slide both “Intensity” and “Hue” to the maximum right 

To enable red light on an Android: 

• Go to Settings 

• Scroll to Accessibility 

• Click on Visibility enhancements 

• Press Color lens (or Color adjustment) 

• Select red 

While ideally, people should be screen free for at least an hour (or two) before bed, attaining that is not a reality for a majority of people. Work, late-night conversations, addiction to scrolling, or a combination of all three stops this from being a reality. For more on how to avoid doomscrolling, read our article on the topic. 

We are in the final month of the semester and finals are closer than any of us would like to think they are. Every minute of sleep counts to getting us through busy days and long study sessions. Give redlight a try and take back some of that sleep.