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Wait. So. "Multiple studies show that light mode is better" trumps my actual experience, with my eyeballs, in my office environment? No. No it doesn't. 1. I d

Wait. So. "Multiple studies show that light mode is better" trumps my actual experience, with my eyeballs, in my office environment? No. No it doesn't. 1. I don't have that much faith in scientists. Someone trying to p-hack their way to a publishable result that's sensational enough to advance their career is not going to produce good advice for me. 2. Even if they were perfect scientists, they're not using my eyeballs. They're grading experiences on a bell curve and taking the median. We all experience things differently. This is the "fighter jet seat problem" - if you use the average then it fits no-one. 3. Even if I had average eyeballs (and I probably do), I doubt my situation is anything like the test subjects in the experiments. My home office isn't set up that well (I'm working on it). 4. My research, conducted using my eyeballs in my home office on my equipment, shows I prefer dark mode. I have tried both, and dark mode was the more comfortable experience. My experiment beats "multiple studies" for my situation. Yours may be different.

trash_cat 6y ago
Dark mode is a matter of demand, not if it's good for you. The real questions scientists should be asking why people want it in the first place. Other than that, I agree with your sentiment.
- pdimitar 6y ago
  People wanted dark modes of websites since the dawn of the web itself. It's just that it was too inconvenient for companies to maintain at least two designs at the same time so they happily turned a blind eye to the requests.
yiyus 6y ago
Science is not a faith based system. If you doubt about the rigor of some study, by all means point the errors you find. In the meantime, I will trust those scientific studies more than subjective opinions in hackernews comments.
- pdimitar 6y ago
  > If you doubt about the rigor of some study, by all means point the errors you find. Sampling. It probably feels good hand-waving away the problem of "does this study apply to everyone?" by introducing the "representative sample" construct, but it has its problems and I doubt they will be ever solved. You can't speak for everyone when you have several thousands samples -- out of ~8 billion people. This is kind of akin to that artificially absurd example of "on average, every human on Earth has one testicle". (And don't get nitpicky here, please; it might be "median" or another term, and that's not the point.) What your parent poster says is that this article is kind of hiding behind science to be able to claim a generalisation it makes is true. Which it still isn't. Most people I asked said they prefer dark mode. Some said they like light mode. This article changes none of that.
  - yiyus 6y ago
    > This is kind of akin to that artificially absurd example of "on average, every human on Earth has one testicle". No. If I claim everyone has 0.5 testicles, that's bad science. If I randomly choose a large enough number of subjects and report that approximately 50% have two testicles and approximately 50% have no testicles, with error bars, p-values, etc., saying that you don't trust this because I am trying to make a career and you prefer to follow your own experience, which after looking between your legs clearly shows that 100% of people have two testicles, would be quite stupid. If I chose only 3 people, or all of them are male or female, or I make any other mistake, point the mistake, but don't attack me personally, and much less science in general. For example, I followed the link to the study by the Nielsen Norman Group and then the reference to the study of Piepenbrock. They explain well their sampling method, with different groups by age and depending on vision problems. You can clearly see the individual results and the variance, and it is obvious that generalizing to the 100% of population would be wrong, but there are some very clear trends. Calling these researchers "someone trying to p-hack their way to a publishable result that's sensational enough to advance their career" without any proof whatsoever is insulting. To be clear, I do not intend that anyone changes habits because of these studies. I agree that this is subjective enough to make it a personal decision. But as a scientist trying to make a career, I found the above comment very disrespectful.
bovermyer 6y ago
By the same token, I hate dark mode and prefer light mode. My experience resonates with this article, but it's not because of this article.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  I completely agree :)
daveed 6y ago
Wait. So. Multiple studies showing that the earth is round trumps my actual experience, with my eyeballs, outside? At least read the studies talk about and their setups, otherwise this kind of sentiment is what also gives us all sorts of out-there beliefs.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  You're talking about an objective reality. This article is talking about a subjective experience. The earth is a slightly flattened sphere regardless of what you or I choose to believe. Dark mode is more productive for me in my experience. And showing me concrete proof that other people are more productive in light mode is not going to change that. It's still going to be more productive for me regardless of how many other people find it less productive. I think this is the core of why we have such out-there beliefs at the moment: everyone believes they live in their own reality, and their subjective opinions trump objective reality. Partly, I think this is due to social sciences attempting to make objective reality out of statistical analysis of subjective opinions. A million people believing the earth is flat doesn't make it so, yet that's exactly what social science says.
athenot 6y ago
Dark mode has 2 main advantages: - Better rendering of hues. This comes in nice for things like syntax coloring, or photo editing. The eye is evaluating a color next to the absence of light, instead of next to washed out light. - Less eye strain when ambient light is insufficient. Ideally the brightness of the screen should be within the same range of brighness as the surroundings. In my home office, I have about 20,000 lumens of light shining in a relatively small space, at a temperature of 5000K. In other words, it's a sunny day in my office regardless of the weather or the time of day. A quick and easy way to figure out if you have enough light (or too much) is to step back and point your cell phone camera at your workspace. Take a photo without HDR mode. Can you make out details of what's on your screen AND its surroundings? For most people, the screen will be washed out because the ambient light is way underpowered. Dark mode is a good response to that situation. With quality and variable lighting, you can have the best setup: use light mode during the day; switch to dark mode when it suits you, whether it be for a task that works better in that mode or for evening time when you prefer to start sending a signal of sleepiness to your body.
- SkyBelow 6y ago
  As someone who uses both dark mode and light mode, a major factor is if I'm in a darker area. When I read books on my phone, I prefer dark mode at night and light mode during the day. To what extent are these studies testing these sub-optimal reading conditions? Are they just testing optimal conditions which could have different results?
- asdkhadsj 6y ago
  Any comments on optimal lighting for a home office? Or, as your setup is? A nice bright working area sounds nice. Bonus if it's good light, and not something that will feel unnatural. Sidenote: I've got a nice big window that I face, and I often want it open, but my room is so dark I have to keep it mostly closed as it overpowers my monitor, eyes, etc.
  - athenot 6y ago
    I have several compact fluorescent bulbs each outputting 8,600 lumen. Since the bulbs measure about 10" long, the only fixture I found to work is suspend a bare socket and attach a giant paper lantern. When selecting light, I pay attention to the temperature of the light (I like 5000K for daylight) and the Color Rendering Index (CRI) which is a measure of the quality of light. Technically you can make "white" with only 3 wavelengths, however the broader the spectrum of light (many wavelengths), the better it shows on reflected surfaces. It's not highly relevant to the topic of eye strain with screens but it's a nice touch that makes the area more comfortable. Recently, I started exploring LED lights and there are some really good options appearing on the market. I tested some spot lights with a CRI of 92 which look even better than halogens. So when it comes time for me to replace my CFLs, I might end up with a better option.
ketzu 6y ago
You are overstating the results of such studies or use your datapoint out of context. Just because A is on average better than B, does not mean that A is better for everyone. If you have a study that shows that most people do(n't) like pineapple on pizza (maybe make a blog post "is pineapple on pizza such a good idea?"), that is rather unrelated to someone likeing pineapple on pizza or not and is not claiming that all people don't like pineapple on pizza. Darkmode is a nice thing! It feels like some people hype it as the 'one true better solution to everything' or a strictly superior version, when it boils down to preferance and minor differences. In the end you probably want to have both options (if you have the capacity to support them).
- proc0 6y ago
  > Just because A is on average better than B, does not mean that A is better for everyone. You're proving the point, how would you even know for sure if you are A or B? You would have to try it out anyway.
mellosouls 6y ago
Whatever works for you, that's great. But your anecdotal preferences are hardly worth using as an argument against scientific research in general. If we all dismissed science to serve our preferences and prejudices, we'd still be in the dark ages. No pun intended.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  sorry if I mislead. I'm criticising Academia, and how science is actually done by humans trying to get tenure. Not Science. And my point was that my anecdotal preferences are massively more important for me than any scientific study, no matter how rigorous.
bananamerica 6y ago
> I don't have that much faith in scientists Suppose your mechanic mess up your car. Suppose this happen again with a second mechanic, and maybe even a third. Is that enough to justify the conclusion that “mechanics are bad”? I don’t think so. Science is the same.
- wtetzner 6y ago
  > Is that enough to justify the conclusion that “mechanics are bad”? Maybe not, but it's certainly enough to justify the conclusion that "mechanics should not be blindly trusted". Same with scientists. Doing good science is hard, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if most studies are flawed. Also, there's a reason the concept of independent verification is so important in science. Even if the scientists doing a study are trying their best to do good science, it's incredibly easy to make a mistake. A healthy dose of skepticism is very much warranted.
  - bananamerica 6y ago
    You shouldn’t blindly believe anything, but science, faulty as it is, does entail a higher degree of credibility than, say, anecdotal evidence.
    - wtetzner 6y ago
      Perhaps, but that's not a very high bar. If you personally experience something that disagrees with what a research paper says, I don't think it's reasonable to just assume you must have been mistaken. That doesn't mean I think you should believe your senses either. It means it's worth looking into it further (if you care, at least).
debrice 6y ago
it's gonna be hard to run a double-blind experiment on that one
nogabebop23 6y ago
>> I don't have that much faith in scientists. well I guess you have faith or dogma to fall back on, then. Safe travels!
- wtetzner 6y ago
  Note they didn't say they don't have faith in science, but that they don't have faith in scientists. There's an important distinction there.
  - marcus_holmes 6y ago
    thank you. Scientists are human, and as flawed as the rest of us. The scientific method doesn't need my faith, but it has it anyway.
agumonkey 6y ago
> I don't have that much faith in scientists. About that, it's surprising that there's so much papercuts in the scientific field these days. p-hacking, lack of peer reviews, journal gatekeeping, also some ex-engineer turned pseudo cosmologist [0] said that there's too much technological 'papers' and not enough fundamentals, which dillute the quality of thinking and the seal of quality attached to the scientific method (the man is a controversial figure, most people would consider him a nutsack, but I can agree with the fact that research has shifted in meaning compared to early 20th century)
shawnz 6y ago
> Wait. So. "Multiple studies show that light mode is better" trumps my actual experience, with my eyeballs, in my office environment? Of course. All you are measuring is how comfortable you feel, which is irrelevant. What they are measuring is how well people actually perform on tasks while using dark mode. Just because dark mode feels better to you doesn't imply anything about the latter question.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
  Seeing as we're talking about something that relates to eyestrain, I don't think we can discount how the GP feels. If you don't feel well you likely aren't going to perform well. If your eyes hurt, you are going to want to stop working. If I had to stare at a bright white screen all day, I wouldn't get the task done because it hurts my eyes. Common sense. Yet another study where it's trying to trump opinion with a study. You can't be wrong if you prefer dark mode/light mode, it's subjective. A study is going to have a real hard time proving one is "better" than the other and we certainly shouldn't take the results on faith.
  - shawnz 6y ago
    Even if dark mode "feels" better that still doesn't imply it actually causes less eye strain. Without data it's possible OP's choice could be driven just by aesthetic preferences and they don't realize it.
    - s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
      I don't see in the study linked in the article where it attributes light mode to more eye strain. I found where blue light causes eye strain, and it most certainly does, I immediately notice the difference when using a blue light filter on my monitor, but you can have both dark mode and a blue light filter enabled. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6020759/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6020759/ Anecdotally, dark mode causes my eyes and my partner's eyes less strain. You can notice by how dry and red they get, as well as the headaches, it's not rocket science. EDIT (reached my post limit) @shawnz: No, the light physically hurts. It's immediate. It's not because of the aesthetics.
Pet_Ant 6y ago
> "fighter jet seat problem" sorry, but is there a link to this? A quick Google showed only issues with the F-35's ejection system.
- hanche 6y ago
  I think I can throw some light on this one. (Sorry, no references. I read about this, but can’tremember where.) Some time years ago, the US air force tried to find out, using statistics, how to design cockpits to fit most pilots. So they did multiple measurements on many people; upper and lower arm lengths, ditto for legs, back lengths, etc. Then they took the average of each measurement and designed cockpits to fit pilots of average size, allowing for some variation, of course. As it turned out, almost every pilot was much more than a standard deviation from the mean in some dimension, so these cockpits actually fit practically no one – resulting in a too high rate of (near) accidents. I am not sure how they overcame the problem, but IIRC, part of the solution involved designing for the exact measurements not being quite so critical.
stefantalpalaru 6y ago
"Reading and Myopia: Contrast Polarity Matters" - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28904-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28904-x : "reading white text from a black screen or tablet may be a way to inhibit myopia, while conventional black text on white background may stimulate myopia"
dekhn 6y ago
I think you have multiple misunderstandings about how science provides valuable results. The first thing I want to say is that I don't devalue your personal experience. I am unaware of any fighter jet seat problem. If you use the average, you're actually pretty likely (depending on the shape of the distribution, which in the case of phenotypes like body size, are normally distributed when broken down by gender) to find the size that accomodates the most people (you could also consider using the median, or the most populated class, or add a few adjustable parts). Science hasn't reached the point where it can create truly personalized models that account for your genetics, personal feelings, and other details about your setup. It would be nice if we had that kind of ability, but the data isn't there (either the quality or quantity of the data). however, it's generally understood that these sorts of studies provide useful evidence for people who are making policy for large numbers of people. Also, what you did at home wasn't an experiment (did you use positive and negative controls and blinding), it was just a measurement of your personal preferences. Again, not trying to deny your personal experience, but a good scientific study does trump your actual experience, when applied to the population at large.
- HappySweeney 6y ago
  The fighter-jet seat problem is pretty famous. https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-force-discovered-the-flaw-of-averages.html https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...
  - dekhn 6y ago
    The article you cited is an interesting just-so explanation but it's mostly narrative, not really correct. It's based on this book https://www.harpercollins.ca/9780062358363/the-end-of-average/ https://www.harpercollins.ca/9780062358363/the-end-of-averag... which espouses some rather non-quantitative concepts (it seems like the author had a hobbyhorse and they rode it as far as they could). I don't know that it's "pretty famous", as I find only a few references to it (the book I mentioned, the article you mentioned, and a few other references). I worked in biology for a long time and work with ML datasets that make money based on statistical analysis of people properties and the idea that "no one is average" is technically correct and also completely missing the point of scientific analysis (I definitely acknowledge that science doesn't do a good job with personalization).
tambourine_man 6y ago
>…I don't have that much faith in scientists And that’s how we got to 2020 with anti-vaccine and flat-earth. It’s science. Axioms and data. You don’t need faith. Got better data? Cause “I like it better” isn’t.
jonshariat 6y ago
They address this in the post: >Many people perceive light mode as the cause of eye strain. But blue light, among other things, is actually the cause of it most of the time. This is covered in more detail by Vice, where they say: >>A 2018 study published in BMJ Open Ophthalmology notes that blue light could be a factor in eye tiredness, but cites dry eyes from not blinking for long periods as a more serious cause of eye strain, as well as too-small fonts, and conditions like uncorrected astigmatism. It may be that when you use dark mode, because of the lack of blue light you feel better. But perhaps you can test this by installing something like [Flux](https://justgetflux.com/ https://justgetflux.com/) to see if that also helps.
msla 6y ago
> Wait. So. "Multiple studies show that light mode is better" trumps my actual experience, with my eyeballs, in my office environment? This is how I always feel about design/UI/UX/etc research: They remove functionality and make things more clumsy and then claim it's Good For Me. They unironically cite to design "fundamentals" without consideration for culture or even personal preference [0] as if any such things could exist. Is it any coincidence the most designed websites are a narrow strip of gray-on-gray text lost in a site which won't even load without heavyweight JS? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23080727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23080727
pachico 6y ago
Not having faith in science isn't a bit incompatible with working with computers?
Accacin 6y ago
Humans as a rule tend to do multiple things thinking that what they’re doing is the best for them and then turns out it’s not. Although for me it’s a ridiculous thing to even bother trying to measure. The problem isn’t whether it’s slightly better to look at a dark or light background but rather that we spend so much time staring at screens that it becomes a problem.
tobmlt 6y ago
Skimming the website and referenced paper-website (didn’t make it to a particular paper) I saw only statements of results, and none of methodology. Is the p-hacking claim “a general feeling” or can you pull it from something concrete here? By the way, in case it is “just” a feeling, I’ll say up front I share the feeling too. I think worth considering for every empirical study.
apotheosis 6y ago
I'm too tired and bored to source it, but, there are also "multiple studies," as the author puts it, stating that dark mode is better. If you like sitting in a bright room, you'll prefer light mode; dark room, dark mode.
hkai 6y ago
While I believe you, you may also see how your argument is similar to the argument "non-proven pseudoscience medical treatments cured my disease, therefore they work". I would be very interested in a study that looks at how much of the dark/light color scheme preference is just due to habit and esthetics.
labelbias 6y ago
I can't handle dark mode. If letters are bright they burn into my eyes and follow my gaze. I use black on solarized background color for years after I dropped the white on black and it feels much better.
SZJX 6y ago
It's quite absurd how the discussion around this post seems to have turned into a fight on dogmatism. I guess many presumed "scientists" are just quite hurt by the blunt statement "I don't have that much faith in scientists", no matter how valid your points might be. If one can't even express doubt about some academic papers (note how different it is to expressing doubt on the whole idea of "science"), which exist in the millions, then things are pretty messed up. A lot of commenters are either incapable of some basic reading comprehension or are deliberately misinterpreting it.

trash_cat 6y ago

Dark mode is a matter of demand, not if it's good for you. The real questions scientists should be asking why people want it in the first place. Other than that, I agree with your sentiment.

pdimitar 6y ago
People wanted dark modes of websites since the dawn of the web itself. It's just that it was too inconvenient for companies to maintain at least two designs at the same time so they happily turned a blind eye to the requests.

yiyus 6y ago

Science is not a faith based system. If you doubt about the rigor of some study, by all means point the errors you find. In the meantime, I will trust those scientific studies more than subjective opinions in hackernews comments.

pdimitar 6y ago
> If you doubt about the rigor of some study, by all means point the errors you find. Sampling. It probably feels good hand-waving away the problem of "does this study apply to everyone?" by introducing the "representative sample" construct, but it has its problems and I doubt they will be ever solved. You can't speak for everyone when you have several thousands samples -- out of ~8 billion people. This is kind of akin to that artificially absurd example of "on average, every human on Earth has one testicle". (And don't get nitpicky here, please; it might be "median" or another term, and that's not the point.) What your parent poster says is that this article is kind of hiding behind science to be able to claim a generalisation it makes is true. Which it still isn't. Most people I asked said they prefer dark mode. Some said they like light mode. This article changes none of that.
- yiyus 6y ago
  > This is kind of akin to that artificially absurd example of "on average, every human on Earth has one testicle". No. If I claim everyone has 0.5 testicles, that's bad science. If I randomly choose a large enough number of subjects and report that approximately 50% have two testicles and approximately 50% have no testicles, with error bars, p-values, etc., saying that you don't trust this because I am trying to make a career and you prefer to follow your own experience, which after looking between your legs clearly shows that 100% of people have two testicles, would be quite stupid. If I chose only 3 people, or all of them are male or female, or I make any other mistake, point the mistake, but don't attack me personally, and much less science in general. For example, I followed the link to the study by the Nielsen Norman Group and then the reference to the study of Piepenbrock. They explain well their sampling method, with different groups by age and depending on vision problems. You can clearly see the individual results and the variance, and it is obvious that generalizing to the 100% of population would be wrong, but there are some very clear trends. Calling these researchers "someone trying to p-hack their way to a publishable result that's sensational enough to advance their career" without any proof whatsoever is insulting. To be clear, I do not intend that anyone changes habits because of these studies. I agree that this is subjective enough to make it a personal decision. But as a scientist trying to make a career, I found the above comment very disrespectful.

bovermyer 6y ago

By the same token, I hate dark mode and prefer light mode. My experience resonates with this article, but it's not because of this article.

marcus_holmes 6y ago
I completely agree :)

daveed 6y ago

Wait. So. Multiple studies showing that the earth is round trumps my actual experience, with my eyeballs, outside? At least read the studies talk about and their setups, otherwise this kind of sentiment is what also gives us all sorts of out-there beliefs.

marcus_holmes 6y ago
You're talking about an objective reality. This article is talking about a subjective experience. The earth is a slightly flattened sphere regardless of what you or I choose to believe. Dark mode is more productive for me in my experience. And showing me concrete proof that other people are more productive in light mode is not going to change that. It's still going to be more productive for me regardless of how many other people find it less productive. I think this is the core of why we have such out-there beliefs at the moment: everyone believes they live in their own reality, and their subjective opinions trump objective reality. Partly, I think this is due to social sciences attempting to make objective reality out of statistical analysis of subjective opinions. A million people believing the earth is flat doesn't make it so, yet that's exactly what social science says.

athenot 6y ago

Dark mode has 2 main advantages: - Better rendering of hues. This comes in nice for things like syntax coloring, or photo editing. The eye is evaluating a color next to the absence of light, instead of next to washed out light. - Less eye strain when ambient light is insufficient. Ideally the brightness of the screen should be within the same range of brighness as the surroundings. In my home office, I have about 20,000 lumens of light shining in a relatively small space, at a temperature of 5000K. In other words, it's a sunny day in my office regardless of the weather or the time of day. A quick and easy way to figure out if you have enough light (or too much) is to step back and point your cell phone camera at your workspace. Take a photo without HDR mode. Can you make out details of what's on your screen AND its surroundings? For most people, the screen will be washed out because the ambient light is way underpowered. Dark mode is a good response to that situation. With quality and variable lighting, you can have the best setup: use light mode during the day; switch to dark mode when it suits you, whether it be for a task that works better in that mode or for evening time when you prefer to start sending a signal of sleepiness to your body.

SkyBelow 6y ago
As someone who uses both dark mode and light mode, a major factor is if I'm in a darker area. When I read books on my phone, I prefer dark mode at night and light mode during the day. To what extent are these studies testing these sub-optimal reading conditions? Are they just testing optimal conditions which could have different results?
asdkhadsj 6y ago
Any comments on optimal lighting for a home office? Or, as your setup is? A nice bright working area sounds nice. Bonus if it's good light, and not something that will feel unnatural. Sidenote: I've got a nice big window that I face, and I often want it open, but my room is so dark I have to keep it mostly closed as it overpowers my monitor, eyes, etc.
- athenot 6y ago
  I have several compact fluorescent bulbs each outputting 8,600 lumen. Since the bulbs measure about 10" long, the only fixture I found to work is suspend a bare socket and attach a giant paper lantern. When selecting light, I pay attention to the temperature of the light (I like 5000K for daylight) and the Color Rendering Index (CRI) which is a measure of the quality of light. Technically you can make "white" with only 3 wavelengths, however the broader the spectrum of light (many wavelengths), the better it shows on reflected surfaces. It's not highly relevant to the topic of eye strain with screens but it's a nice touch that makes the area more comfortable. Recently, I started exploring LED lights and there are some really good options appearing on the market. I tested some spot lights with a CRI of 92 which look even better than halogens. So when it comes time for me to replace my CFLs, I might end up with a better option.

ketzu 6y ago

You are overstating the results of such studies or use your datapoint out of context. Just because A is on average better than B, does not mean that A is better for everyone. If you have a study that shows that most people do(n't) like pineapple on pizza (maybe make a blog post "is pineapple on pizza such a good idea?"), that is rather unrelated to someone likeing pineapple on pizza or not and is not claiming that all people don't like pineapple on pizza. Darkmode is a nice thing! It feels like some people hype it as the 'one true better solution to everything' or a strictly superior version, when it boils down to preferance and minor differences. In the end you probably want to have both options (if you have the capacity to support them).

proc0 6y ago
> Just because A is on average better than B, does not mean that A is better for everyone. You're proving the point, how would you even know for sure if you are A or B? You would have to try it out anyway.

mellosouls 6y ago

Whatever works for you, that's great. But your anecdotal preferences are hardly worth using as an argument against scientific research in general. If we all dismissed science to serve our preferences and prejudices, we'd still be in the dark ages. No pun intended.

marcus_holmes 6y ago
sorry if I mislead. I'm criticising Academia, and how science is actually done by humans trying to get tenure. Not Science. And my point was that my anecdotal preferences are massively more important for me than any scientific study, no matter how rigorous.

bananamerica 6y ago

> I don't have that much faith in scientists Suppose your mechanic mess up your car. Suppose this happen again with a second mechanic, and maybe even a third. Is that enough to justify the conclusion that “mechanics are bad”? I don’t think so. Science is the same.

wtetzner 6y ago
> Is that enough to justify the conclusion that “mechanics are bad”? Maybe not, but it's certainly enough to justify the conclusion that "mechanics should not be blindly trusted". Same with scientists. Doing good science is hard, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if most studies are flawed. Also, there's a reason the concept of independent verification is so important in science. Even if the scientists doing a study are trying their best to do good science, it's incredibly easy to make a mistake. A healthy dose of skepticism is very much warranted.
- bananamerica 6y ago
  You shouldn’t blindly believe anything, but science, faulty as it is, does entail a higher degree of credibility than, say, anecdotal evidence.
  - wtetzner 6y ago
    Perhaps, but that's not a very high bar. If you personally experience something that disagrees with what a research paper says, I don't think it's reasonable to just assume you must have been mistaken. That doesn't mean I think you should believe your senses either. It means it's worth looking into it further (if you care, at least).

debrice 6y ago

it's gonna be hard to run a double-blind experiment on that one

nogabebop23 6y ago

>> I don't have that much faith in scientists. well I guess you have faith or dogma to fall back on, then. Safe travels!

wtetzner 6y ago
Note they didn't say they don't have faith in science, but that they don't have faith in scientists. There's an important distinction there.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  thank you. Scientists are human, and as flawed as the rest of us. The scientific method doesn't need my faith, but it has it anyway.

agumonkey 6y ago

> I don't have that much faith in scientists. About that, it's surprising that there's so much papercuts in the scientific field these days. p-hacking, lack of peer reviews, journal gatekeeping, also some ex-engineer turned pseudo cosmologist [0] said that there's too much technological 'papers' and not enough fundamentals, which dillute the quality of thinking and the seal of quality attached to the scientific method (the man is a controversial figure, most people would consider him a nutsack, but I can agree with the fact that research has shifted in meaning compared to early 20th century)

shawnz 6y ago

> Wait. So. "Multiple studies show that light mode is better" trumps my actual experience, with my eyeballs, in my office environment? Of course. All you are measuring is how comfortable you feel, which is irrelevant. What they are measuring is how well people actually perform on tasks while using dark mode. Just because dark mode feels better to you doesn't imply anything about the latter question.

s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
Seeing as we're talking about something that relates to eyestrain, I don't think we can discount how the GP feels. If you don't feel well you likely aren't going to perform well. If your eyes hurt, you are going to want to stop working. If I had to stare at a bright white screen all day, I wouldn't get the task done because it hurts my eyes. Common sense. Yet another study where it's trying to trump opinion with a study. You can't be wrong if you prefer dark mode/light mode, it's subjective. A study is going to have a real hard time proving one is "better" than the other and we certainly shouldn't take the results on faith.
- shawnz 6y ago
  Even if dark mode "feels" better that still doesn't imply it actually causes less eye strain. Without data it's possible OP's choice could be driven just by aesthetic preferences and they don't realize it.
  - s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
    I don't see in the study linked in the article where it attributes light mode to more eye strain. I found where blue light causes eye strain, and it most certainly does, I immediately notice the difference when using a blue light filter on my monitor, but you can have both dark mode and a blue light filter enabled. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6020759/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6020759/ Anecdotally, dark mode causes my eyes and my partner's eyes less strain. You can notice by how dry and red they get, as well as the headaches, it's not rocket science. EDIT (reached my post limit) @shawnz: No, the light physically hurts. It's immediate. It's not because of the aesthetics.

Pet_Ant 6y ago

> "fighter jet seat problem" sorry, but is there a link to this? A quick Google showed only issues with the F-35's ejection system.

hanche 6y ago
I think I can throw some light on this one. (Sorry, no references. I read about this, but can’tremember where.) Some time years ago, the US air force tried to find out, using statistics, how to design cockpits to fit most pilots. So they did multiple measurements on many people; upper and lower arm lengths, ditto for legs, back lengths, etc. Then they took the average of each measurement and designed cockpits to fit pilots of average size, allowing for some variation, of course. As it turned out, almost every pilot was much more than a standard deviation from the mean in some dimension, so these cockpits actually fit practically no one – resulting in a too high rate of (near) accidents. I am not sure how they overcame the problem, but IIRC, part of the solution involved designing for the exact measurements not being quite so critical.

stefantalpalaru 6y ago

"Reading and Myopia: Contrast Polarity Matters" - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28904-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28904-x : "reading white text from a black screen or tablet may be a way to inhibit myopia, while conventional black text on white background may stimulate myopia"

dekhn 6y ago

I think you have multiple misunderstandings about how science provides valuable results. The first thing I want to say is that I don't devalue your personal experience. I am unaware of any fighter jet seat problem. If you use the average, you're actually pretty likely (depending on the shape of the distribution, which in the case of phenotypes like body size, are normally distributed when broken down by gender) to find the size that accomodates the most people (you could also consider using the median, or the most populated class, or add a few adjustable parts). Science hasn't reached the point where it can create truly personalized models that account for your genetics, personal feelings, and other details about your setup. It would be nice if we had that kind of ability, but the data isn't there (either the quality or quantity of the data). however, it's generally understood that these sorts of studies provide useful evidence for people who are making policy for large numbers of people. Also, what you did at home wasn't an experiment (did you use positive and negative controls and blinding), it was just a measurement of your personal preferences. Again, not trying to deny your personal experience, but a good scientific study does trump your actual experience, when applied to the population at large.

HappySweeney 6y ago
The fighter-jet seat problem is pretty famous. https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-force-discovered-the-flaw-of-averages.html https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...
- dekhn 6y ago
  The article you cited is an interesting just-so explanation but it's mostly narrative, not really correct. It's based on this book https://www.harpercollins.ca/9780062358363/the-end-of-average/ https://www.harpercollins.ca/9780062358363/the-end-of-averag... which espouses some rather non-quantitative concepts (it seems like the author had a hobbyhorse and they rode it as far as they could). I don't know that it's "pretty famous", as I find only a few references to it (the book I mentioned, the article you mentioned, and a few other references). I worked in biology for a long time and work with ML datasets that make money based on statistical analysis of people properties and the idea that "no one is average" is technically correct and also completely missing the point of scientific analysis (I definitely acknowledge that science doesn't do a good job with personalization).

tambourine_man 6y ago

>…I don't have that much faith in scientists And that’s how we got to 2020 with anti-vaccine and flat-earth. It’s science. Axioms and data. You don’t need faith. Got better data? Cause “I like it better” isn’t.

jonshariat 6y ago

They address this in the post: >Many people perceive light mode as the cause of eye strain. But blue light, among other things, is actually the cause of it most of the time. This is covered in more detail by Vice, where they say: >>A 2018 study published in BMJ Open Ophthalmology notes that blue light could be a factor in eye tiredness, but cites dry eyes from not blinking for long periods as a more serious cause of eye strain, as well as too-small fonts, and conditions like uncorrected astigmatism. It may be that when you use dark mode, because of the lack of blue light you feel better. But perhaps you can test this by installing something like [Flux](https://justgetflux.com/ https://justgetflux.com/) to see if that also helps.

msla 6y ago

> Wait. So. "Multiple studies show that light mode is better" trumps my actual experience, with my eyeballs, in my office environment? This is how I always feel about design/UI/UX/etc research: They remove functionality and make things more clumsy and then claim it's Good For Me. They unironically cite to design "fundamentals" without consideration for culture or even personal preference [0] as if any such things could exist. Is it any coincidence the most designed websites are a narrow strip of gray-on-gray text lost in a site which won't even load without heavyweight JS? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23080727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23080727

pachico 6y ago

Not having faith in science isn't a bit incompatible with working with computers?

Accacin 6y ago

Humans as a rule tend to do multiple things thinking that what they’re doing is the best for them and then turns out it’s not. Although for me it’s a ridiculous thing to even bother trying to measure. The problem isn’t whether it’s slightly better to look at a dark or light background but rather that we spend so much time staring at screens that it becomes a problem.

tobmlt 6y ago

Skimming the website and referenced paper-website (didn’t make it to a particular paper) I saw only statements of results, and none of methodology. Is the p-hacking claim “a general feeling” or can you pull it from something concrete here? By the way, in case it is “just” a feeling, I’ll say up front I share the feeling too. I think worth considering for every empirical study.

apotheosis 6y ago

I'm too tired and bored to source it, but, there are also "multiple studies," as the author puts it, stating that dark mode is better. If you like sitting in a bright room, you'll prefer light mode; dark room, dark mode.

hkai 6y ago

While I believe you, you may also see how your argument is similar to the argument "non-proven pseudoscience medical treatments cured my disease, therefore they work". I would be very interested in a study that looks at how much of the dark/light color scheme preference is just due to habit and esthetics.

labelbias 6y ago

I can't handle dark mode. If letters are bright they burn into my eyes and follow my gaze. I use black on solarized background color for years after I dropped the white on black and it feels much better.

SZJX 6y ago

It's quite absurd how the discussion around this post seems to have turned into a fight on dogmatism. I guess many presumed "scientists" are just quite hurt by the blunt statement "I don't have that much faith in scientists", no matter how valid your points might be. If one can't even express doubt about some academic papers (note how different it is to expressing doubt on the whole idea of "science"), which exist in the millions, then things are pretty messed up. A lot of commenters are either incapable of some basic reading comprehension or are deliberately misinterpreting it.