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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? Of course. All you are m

by 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.
    - shawnz 6y ago
      You measured the dryness/redness of your/your partner's eyes after trying dark and light mode? Or is it just that occasionally you or your partner get dry/red eyes and the most memorable association was using light mode beforehand (and it's memorable because you don't like the aesthetics of it)? I don't think this is "rocket science" but that doesn't mean it is handwavingly obvious either
    - philipov 6y ago
      What's a post limit? I've never encountered such a thing.
  - dspillett 6y ago
    As much as, probably more than, aesthetic preferences, I would posit that there are many environmental differences which are difficult to completely control for. Screen type and configuration, ambient light level, light source positioning, how often the user look away from the screen (completely away from work, or just onto other media to read from a page for instance), etc. Having said that I think my preferences are mainly, if not entirely, aesthetic. Dark-on-light terminals feel weird as do light-on-dark documents/spreadsheets - that can't be anything other than just what I'm used to.
marcus_holmes 6y ago
I feel more productive when using dark mode. Better?
- derefr 6y ago
  The parent's point being that feeling productive has roughly no correlation with being productive. You can feel very productive with that https://pippinbarr.github.io/itisasifyouweredoingwork/ https://pippinbarr.github.io/itisasifyouweredoingwork/ game that was recently linked here; but that doesn't mean that you are more productive, and in fact you will be much less-so, because the "work" in the game is meaningless.
  - andreilys 6y ago
    Ah yes because these scientific studies using light vs dark mode were able to precisely capture “productivity” output which totally translates to the work that SWE do.
    - derefr 6y ago
      Who said anything about the scientific studies proving anything? My point was that feelings prove just as little. If you're not going to trust other people, then especially don't trust yourself. The output of your feelings is even less evidence-based than the worst possible scientific study. If you want to truly understand how you specifically react to something, then do science yourself. You don't need to be very rigorous with this, as the goal isn't to prove some huge effect size. The goal is to just get an objective answer to the question of whether you are more productive, rather than a subjective (and therefore very likely wrong) one. Find an objective measure of your own personal performance (anything you care about, doesn't have to be something a boss would care about); maybe find a way to blind yourself to which days you're using the treatment vs. a placebo; write down numbers; and then stick 'em in Excel and see what you get. I would point at Gwern as a good example of someone who runs self-experiments to determine the objective n=1 effects of different "life hacks" on things they care about. (For Gwern, this is usually brain performance—measured by, among other things, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-back https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-back task, data for which can be collected in the form of "playing" a quick round of a computer game.) For example, here's their look into magnesium supplementation: https://www.gwern.net/nootropics/Magnesium https://www.gwern.net/nootropics/Magnesium

by shawnz 6y ago

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.
  - shawnz 6y ago
    You measured the dryness/redness of your/your partner's eyes after trying dark and light mode? Or is it just that occasionally you or your partner get dry/red eyes and the most memorable association was using light mode beforehand (and it's memorable because you don't like the aesthetics of it)? I don't think this is "rocket science" but that doesn't mean it is handwavingly obvious either
  - philipov 6y ago
    What's a post limit? I've never encountered such a thing.
- dspillett 6y ago
  As much as, probably more than, aesthetic preferences, I would posit that there are many environmental differences which are difficult to completely control for. Screen type and configuration, ambient light level, light source positioning, how often the user look away from the screen (completely away from work, or just onto other media to read from a page for instance), etc. Having said that I think my preferences are mainly, if not entirely, aesthetic. Dark-on-light terminals feel weird as do light-on-dark documents/spreadsheets - that can't be anything other than just what I'm used to.

marcus_holmes 6y ago

I feel more productive when using dark mode. Better?

derefr 6y ago
The parent's point being that feeling productive has roughly no correlation with being productive. You can feel very productive with that https://pippinbarr.github.io/itisasifyouweredoingwork/ https://pippinbarr.github.io/itisasifyouweredoingwork/ game that was recently linked here; but that doesn't mean that you are more productive, and in fact you will be much less-so, because the "work" in the game is meaningless.
- andreilys 6y ago
  Ah yes because these scientific studies using light vs dark mode were able to precisely capture “productivity” output which totally translates to the work that SWE do.
  - derefr 6y ago
    Who said anything about the scientific studies proving anything? My point was that feelings prove just as little. If you're not going to trust other people, then especially don't trust yourself. The output of your feelings is even less evidence-based than the worst possible scientific study. If you want to truly understand how you specifically react to something, then do science yourself. You don't need to be very rigorous with this, as the goal isn't to prove some huge effect size. The goal is to just get an objective answer to the question of whether you are more productive, rather than a subjective (and therefore very likely wrong) one. Find an objective measure of your own personal performance (anything you care about, doesn't have to be something a boss would care about); maybe find a way to blind yourself to which days you're using the treatment vs. a placebo; write down numbers; and then stick 'em in Excel and see what you get. I would point at Gwern as a good example of someone who runs self-experiments to determine the objective n=1 effects of different "life hacks" on things they care about. (For Gwern, this is usually brain performance—measured by, among other things, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-back https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-back task, data for which can be collected in the form of "playing" a quick round of a computer game.) For example, here's their look into magnesium supplementation: https://www.gwern.net/nootropics/Magnesium https://www.gwern.net/nootropics/Magnesium