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Is Dark Mode Good for Your Eyes? (2020)

• jeppester 4y ago
  Personally I think dark mode looks cooler and less "ancient IDE"-ish. But I always end up switching back to a light theme because it feels depressing to look at a dark screen all day.
• hosteur 4y ago
  I primarily use dark mode when I am in the dark or in a dimly lit room. Having any light blasted right into my eyes hurts. And ruins my night vision. And also messes with my sleep.
  • ramraj07 4y ago
    • nosianu 4y ago
      Aaaand use f.lux (https://justgetflux.com/ https://justgetflux.com/). Daylight setting black on white may indeed be way too bright at night, but when you turn down amount of light produced - or let through to your eyes - by your monitor and combine it with the night adjustments from f.lux in my experience you are good even reading late. Of course, in addition I also only use some pretty dim LEDs from some x-mas decorations instead of the bright lamps everybody else seems to use when I walk around the neighborhood at night. I could not live with using those regular lamps any more. I've gotten used to having my rooms pretty dark whenever it's dark outside, light equivalent to maybe half a dozen candles. Both the ambient light and the monitor have to be adjusted. They can use dark mode all they want, if they leave a regular lamp on it still is very bright. Living like this I noticed how little light I actually need, by now I deliberately keep older - significantly dimmer than new - of those x-mas LED chains ("warm white" - more yellow by now), use the newer (still brighter) ones early in the evening, and later switch to the old even dimmer ones exclusively. And it still is more than enough, maybe three or four candles equivalent per room.
    • krsrhe 4y ago
    • pxc 4y ago
      > > I primarily use dark mode when I am in the dark or in a dimly lit room. Having any light blasted right into my eyes hurts. And ruins my night vision. And also messes with my sleep. > It’s almost like too tongue in cheek that you write exactly like the techbros the article talks about. Did you even try to read the article? > [...] > Anecdotal techbro proclamations that dark mode is easier to read has been categorically proven false. It’s not easier to read and it’s not less strain on your eyes. I did, and I think this kind of reasoning is not wise or meaningfully scientific. Experiencing physical pain in the response to something when you see it is way more immediate and way more relevant to one's own decisions regarding that stimulus than some study about average effects across a population of people who have different eyes than you in a situation that you can only hope is sufficiently analogous to your actual usage. (Note that GP writes only about their own experience— their comment does not contain a general argument.) The article in the OP mentions that things may be different for people with various eye conditions. Guess what? Experiencing pain from using light mode is pretty much a defining symptom of such conditions. > Light sensitivity is a condition in which bright lights hurt your eyes. Another name for this condition is photophobia. https://www.healthline.com/health/photophobia https://www.healthline.com/health/photophobia Through genetic testing, my sister has been diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease which is a cause of photophobia. Despite seeing eye doctors (including various specialists) her whole life, and knowing her entire life that bright light is painful for her, it took her decades to get that diagnosis. According to your reasoning here, self-advocating for her health and accessibility based upon her own experience of her conditions would have been based on unworthy 'anecdotal proclamations' up until a few months ago. Let's revisit that characterization: > Anecdotal techbro proclamations that dark mode is easier to read has been categorically proven false. It’s not easier to read and it’s not less strain on your eyes. It's very easy to find studies later than the date of the OP challenging this view on eye strain with respect to dark mode, including ones that consider the effects of blue light filters, e.g., https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9363189/ https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9363189/ Why overcommit like that? How does that advance the credibility of any person or honor the science?
    • alpos 4y ago
      Your tone and overconfidence is the only techbro thing going on here. You really think you've read enough on this or that there's even been enough study of the topic for you to know with any certainty at all how someone else's eyes are working for them? Pure hubris. All the data you can read doesn't mean a damn thing for Hosteur's personal experience. Neither you nor anyone you have read has studied that person's eyes, you actually have zero basis for telling them what is easier to read or how much strain they feel in their eyes. The science on this has been going back and forth for at least the better part of two decades now. Nothing here has been proven, as is the case in most actual science. Any single study merely supports or doesn't support some view or hypothesis. It takes forever to confidently say we know how the eye is even working in these situations, let alone offer some broad recommendation for what every person ought to do. Aside from that, you are misusing the concept of a categorical proof. The studies at hand don't even address the problem as a categorical concept space. There are no symbolic categories here, no functions mapping objects onto semantic spaces. You are stealing a term you don't understand from a field of mathematics you don't understand to shoot down a person you don't understand. Stop being an ass and at least try to understand people before you try to tell them what their reality is and what they ought to be doing before bed.
      • ramraj07 4y ago
        This topic does seem to rile up techbros a lot lol. Maybe tied with “mechanical keyboards make me more efficient” said by people who barely type 200 words a day.
        • alpos 4y ago
          No argument there, after all, you showed up.
  • ptcrash 4y ago
    Same here. I also switch to light mode when I'm in a very bright environment and it seems to have helped a lot with eye strain since last year. I feel like these studies are being a bit 1-dimensional... but then again, maybe that's my own confirmation bias.
    • mtrower 4y ago
      I’d say that’s normal (studies being one-dimensional). The idea being to isolate as many complications as possible to get at the heart of one single matter. I didn’t read the study itself, but usually the scientists (if they aren’t pushing an agenda) are aware of the limitations of their studies. It’s the people reporting and commenting on those studies that extrapolate unwarranted conclusions and generalizations from them.
  • GIFtheory 4y ago
    Agreed—the article is sort of silly in that it debunks a bunch of bogus claims about dark mode, but then completely overlooks the main legitimate use, which is to limit exposure to artificial light at night. You basically want to get as much light during the day as is safely possible to stay focused and alert (note that this can be counterindicated for people with certain health conditions, like glaucoma), and then limit light exposure as much as possible at night in order to be able to fall asleep and keep your circadian rhythms healthy. More information here, e.g. https://hubermanlab.com/dr-samer-hattar-timing-light-food-exercise-for-better-sleep-energy-mood/ https://hubermanlab.com/dr-samer-hattar-timing-light-food-ex...
    • TeMPOraL 4y ago
      > You basically want to get as much light during the day as is safely possible to stay focused and alert (note that this can be counterindicated for people with certain health conditions, like glaucoma) Incidentally, for most people, this means that - unless they're spending most of their time outdoors - they're not getting enough light.
• Paganitzu 4y ago
  This article seems to equate dark mode with white text on black background. I tend to see dark kodes more complex than that, specifically with yellow text on a dark background which is what I tend to prefer. Ive always liked darcula themes for coding because of the variety of contrasts are better for me.
  • Paganitzu 4y ago
    Worth noting I'm also red/green color blind, which might matter.
• mephitix 4y ago
  100% agree with using night shift/flux. But having a monitor on in the dark, even if I use flux/night vision and even with low brightness physically hurts my eyes compared to just using dark mode on my apps.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• steve1977 4y ago
  Having astigmatism, I definitely feel like text in dark mode is harder to read than dark text on light background. In regards to eye strain with light mode, what I found important is to match screen brightness to „environmental brightness“ (don’t know the proper term). As a rule of thumb, when I put a white paper in front of a white screen, the screen shouldn’t illuminate the paper more than the other lights in the room.
  • echelon 4y ago
    > „environmental brightness“ (don’t know the proper term) "Ambient" brightness. You were close, and that term worked well enough!
  • TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    > In regards to eye strain with light mode, what I found important is to match screen brightness to „environmental brightness“ (don’t know the proper term). Oh yes, exactly this. At evening when sun is going down, then I can feel eye strain as I am looking into brighter and brighter monitor. Switching the light on will easily resolve it.
  • illusiveman 4y ago
    It's the same experience for me. I used to use dark mode every where because it was somewhat accepted that the lesser bright the better. But then I read a science-based post years ago about why light mode is better for our eyes, especially for people with astigmatism, as our eyes are naturally used to focus on objects on bright scenarios (sunlight). Switched back to light theme right away, except for coding, because actually syntax highlighting is better with dark background.
    • apmee 4y ago
      Bit of a long shot, but I don't suppose you'd happen to know where to find that post or what it was called?
      • sooheon 4y ago
• stared 4y ago
  Not to be a sage here, but "every research is an average taken in the past on other people". What works for the average is likely a good starting point. It is not necessarily the best for you and a given case (almost for sure different from the experimental ones).
• milicat 4y ago
  I just think dark mode is prettier.
  • discreteevent 4y ago
    Light mode works better for me and that's what I use. But dark mode is definitely prettier.
• phillipcarter 4y ago
  Several years ago, after reading about how claims of dark mode being beneficial were usually bullshit, I switched to light mode for everything and just making sure I have lights turned on where I'm at. It's great!
• sphinxster 4y ago
  Yes, my eyes don't hurt anymore, my vision has improved, and I sleep better. I won't go back. Reading condescending insults and "reasons" (in dark mode...) that flatly contradict direct experience won't change that.
  • Paganitzu 4y ago
• heather45879 4y ago
  The answer is obviously—no it’s not! Neither is light mode. Screens are bad for the eyes.
  • eddiequinn 4y ago
    In this scenario you kinda just have to do what is best for you, and how you work. Don't get me wrong I'm glad to be better informed on this, but its not going to change that I prefer how dark mode looks overall
• mberning 4y ago
  It’s a major benefit for people that are annoyed by eye floaters.
  • TillE 4y ago
    That's the main reason I greatly prefer dark mode. I'm surprised it's not mentioned more often, since they're quite common as you age. I've had one since around age 35.
• ilyt 4y ago
  I do prefer dark one but I found out man dark themes are just plainly made badly. Between bad contrast (I'm looking at you Solarized dark) and just picking plainly too dark background most dark themes are just bad. I wonder if that might've skewed results, kinda hard to make objective "best light/dark theme"
  • mtrower 4y ago
    Solarized has the same contrast relationships in both modes, though. That’s kind of the point.
• citizenkrank 4y ago
  The conclusion of this article (dark mode is bad for your eyes) seems to contradict the article that is used as the main source. In the source (https://www.nngroup.com/articles/dark-mode/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/dark-mode/) , light mode is described as possibly associated with myopia (nearsightedness).
• chronogram 4y ago
  I thought that was obvious and dark mode was a meme about gamers not having sunlight while having their monitors set at maximum brightness so they use dark mode to reduce glare. Like the whole sunlight is burning, quick close the blinds joke. OLED mode on my phone is definitely a treat for battery life, but then darker actually means less light instead of dark coloured light.
  • krsrhe 4y ago
    If room is totally dark, there is no brightness level that is comfortable in light mode, due to high contrast with ambient. It here is simply too much area lit up.
  • fwip 4y ago
    Nitpick - both OLED and regular LED monitors emit less light when the screen is dark/black. The LED monitor is doing it less efficiently (because the LCD screen is blocking the backlight), but it's not "dark coloured light."
• smitty1e 4y ago
  The astigmatism point is interesting. I cannot tolerate more than a page of dead tree books before getting into a major headache situation. Some sort of back-lit magnifier is needed. Any suggestions?
• falkensmaz3 4y ago
  All I can say is :shrug: As soon as I left the comfortable worlds of Apple ][ and MS-DOS and got shoved into Windows 3.0, I pined for a dark screen and started fucking with the color profile. When I was 12. When I started running Solaris and Linux boxes in college, always had a dark terminal, and wrote my code in vi. The older I get, the more I crave the darkness, and the UX bros are accommodating me. Maybe it's just too late for me already.
  • layer8 4y ago
    This was certainly true in CRT times, but since the advent of LCD I prefer light mode, and it is easier on my eyes (as long as the brightness matches the ambient light). Only with OLED do I prefer dark mode, at night, at least on mobile devices (haven’t used an OLED desktop yet).
  • deepspace 4y ago
    It is interesting how different people have different experiences. I grew up in the days of green monochrome terminals and monitors, and hated them. I bought an amber monitor as soon as they became available, and that helped a bit with the eyestrain. Windows 3, Word for Windows and TSE were a godsend to me. Finally, I could read and write code and documents the way I thought they were intended to be viewed- dark text on a light background, mimicking real-world books and papers. Today, I do use dark mode; my devices are set up to go dark late at night, in case I wake up and want to check something without burning my eyes. But that comprises a miniscule amount of the time I spend in front of a screen.
    • midoridensha 4y ago
      >Finally, I could read and write code and documents the way I thought they were intended to be viewed- dark text on a light background, mimicking real-world books and papers. Real-world paper doesn't have a backlight behind it, projecting bright white light directly into your eyes. If you want to see documents the way they were "intended" to be viewed, you need to use an e-ink screen.
      • 4y ago
• TrianguloY 4y ago
  > By default, the human pupil changes size depending on the amount of light in the environment This is the key: Do you work on a very illuminated place? Use light mode. Do you work in somewhat darkness? Please use dark mode. At least that's what I try to follow, otherwise at the end of the day my eyes gets very tired.
  • Gigachad 4y ago
    It's usually always possible to just illuminate the room unless you are out programming at a bus stop at night I guess.
    • alpos 4y ago
      Or you have to use a highly reflective monitor. Or you have a blessed matte monitor but you have whiteboards, stainless steel appliances, glass, bright colored walls, and other stuff at various angles in the environment behind you. In which case the first thing you and everyone else trying to see past the reflections is going to do is dim the lights and lower the shades.
  • layer8 4y ago
    One should always adjust screen brightness to the ambient lighting. If ambient lighting is so low that an accordingly “bright” background provides too little contrast for black text, then yes, dark mode becomes preferable. This is probably a similar point as when printed material becomes too difficult to read. But the other option is to just not work in such a dim environment.
• eCa 4y ago
  Personally, I find using f.lux and running all screens at 10-20% brightness more pleasant than dark mode. Depending of course on the individual screen, so occasionally it can be higher. And my phone outdoors on a sunny day may very well be at 100%.
  • yazzku 4y ago
    Same. I'm no doctor here but setting screen brightness to ambient level (typically low at 20-30%) with proper contrast can't be underestimated. And Flux or "night light" 24/7 to cut the blue.
• EugeneOZ 4y ago
  I use "light" mode in daytime (most of my programming time), and "dark" mode at night (mostly on my phone). Works fine for me.
• Barrin92 4y ago
  I'm also sick of this trend in particular when websites or apps start shipping dark mode as default. It's not a good way to read text. Light text on a dark background reduces the amount of light getting into your eyes, it means your pupil needs to open wider and that has several negative effects one obvious is a halo-effect around letters that makes light text bleed into the background reducing readability. You don't really need to trust any science for that. Look at bright text on dark background and then look at a white wall. Chances are you can literally still see the text as an after image. The reason why so many people seem to switch to it is because they literally live in goblin caves without proper lighting. Working in a well lit room and not at night and a properly configured monitor is a much better solution than dark mode.
• stayux 4y ago
  Every classically trained artist and designer knows the principles of contrast. Dark-colored text over a light background will result in a higher contrast ratio than the opposite combination. Design decisions must be objective and based on data. As an option, the user must have the choice to apply different modes and themes based on A11 for low vision. For example, the principle of higher contrast (dark-colored text on light background) will be literally painful for people with photophobia. More on this subject: https://www.w3.org/TR/low-vision-needs/#light-sensitivity https://www.w3.org/TR/low-vision-needs/#light-sensitivity
• sublinear 4y ago
  Am I the only one that kinda doesn't care either way? I just want consistency so my eyes don't have to adjust between apps/sites and enough contrast for legibility (WCAG says 4.5:1).
• nness 4y ago
  I have a degenerative corneal disease and dark mode is hands down the best trend in interface design in recent memory (its gotten to the point where I use Tampermonkey scripts to force invert pages to help legibility.) In any case, whether its a trend, saves battery, helps or hurts the eyes, I can certainly say its a great accessibility feature.
• stevebmark 4y ago
  It's interesting that this article surfaced shortly after the Ask HN question about maintaining eye health https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33945390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33945390 This blog post and most replies are misinformation and misunderstanding, and people posting their own anecdotes as advice. If you aren't considering the macula, emmetropization, circadian rhythms, and corneal thinning, then please don't give advice to others on this topic. Most people, this blog post author included, don't understand what "good for your eyes" means. For some reason, when talking about eye health, people resort to anecdotes and guessing.
  • ergonaught 4y ago
    Great! What is the empirical answer, then?
    • midoridensha 4y ago
      Most likely, there is none. This blog post is just some BS that takes some talking points from one crappy study somewhere. The anecdotes in reply are just that: anedcotes, though honestly, they're probably overall of much higher value than the blog post, since they account for all kinds of issues that the post does not (such as the people with floaters). I'm pretty sure there's no scientific consensus on this issue at all.
  • KaoruAoiShiho 4y ago
    Then please educate us, everyone wants to know...
• cpleppert 4y ago
  This post is mostly misleading. Its not clear at all that blue light has a significant impact on sleep or eyestrain; the science is ambigious. The main piece of research referenced suggests that dark mode is worse in situations of low ambient light. But that was at small text sizes; of course, light text on a dark background has less contrast than dark text on a light background. That doesn't address the question of whether dark mode, used correctly, helps to alleviate eyestrain in low ambient light conditions. The suggestions offered seem to have little empirical evidence to back them up. If you feel more comfortable using dark mode at night there is little here to suggest that it would be harmful.
• blueskies0 4y ago
  I'm happy with both dark and light mode as long as I'm not forced to switch back and forth between the two modes.
• davidhs 4y ago
  I have lots of eye floaters which annoy me when I'm looking at bright uniform surfaces, such as white paper or white background, but I hardly notice them with dark mode.
  • chi_features 4y ago
    This is why I use dark mode too – and it's made a huge difference for me. My floaters are particularly noticeable on white-backgrounded screens/webpages on my 43" external monitor where because, I assume, my eyes have to dart across greater distances than when I'm using my MBP 14".
  • amatecha 4y ago
    Yup I've had also had some show up in the past while (got it checked out to make sure no concerns), and looking at a very bright screen makes them _very_ apparent. I already preferred a darker screen but this just sealed the deal.
  • animuchan 4y ago
    Came here to write this exact comment. Floaters are distracting and break the flow. Dark theme means less distractions. This was probably the easiest choice I made in my life.
  • DigitalComrade 4y ago
    Same. They don't bother me in every day life at all. Stick me in front of a white screen though and they become incredibly distracting,
• the-printer 4y ago
  Lunar plug https://lunar.fyi/?source=lowtechguys https://lunar.fyi/?source=lowtechguys Unrelated to dark mode, but is a visual game changer. People should also take the time out to get appropriate light bulbs for their studies and work desks. I want to speak more on visual settings in web design and GUIs, but I’m eating some corn chips. In brief, I’m starting to understand that accessibility concerns don’t refer exclusively to people with certain conditions, but even those who want to use computers comfortably.
  • hammock 4y ago
    >get appropriate light bulbs for their studies and work desks. What are these?
    • the-printer 4y ago
      You know like in lamps or light fixtures. Get the right color temperature for your surroundings and needs and what not. For example, for some deranged reason I felt that it was appropriate to have my entire study engulfed in Daylight lightbulbs. The three bulbs in the ceiling fan and the tall lamp next to my desk. Daylight. I must have figured, “Man, I do a lot of reading”, or something like that. Daylight. This went on for quite sometime. I would often receive comments about how the lamp would serve better for interrogations, but I kept on with this setup until I got a monitor for my laptop. This required a non-impeding alteration to the layout of my desk. The height and bend of the lamp had to be changed, I had to change how I sat to accommodate how I looked at the monitor, or when I was using both the laptop and monitor. Stuff like that. It wasn’t until my right eye began to feel dry that I decided to make a change. So I spent some time learning how to choose the right lightbulb. I did not need daylight. I was not in a restroom or operating a security camera. I needed something warmer. So I got something warmer and I use Lunar.
      • SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
        This is why I use colour changing LED bulbs. During the day I have them in the bluer parts of the spectrum, and as the night goes they are automatically switched to warmer colour temps, and dimmer brightness settings.
• de6u99er 4y ago
  Dark mode is harder to read, especially after a long day. But my wife has a light sleep and surfing light mode at night while being in bed is not an option.
  • sneak 4y ago
    It's a bad idea, health-wise, to use a bed for anything other than sleeping or cuddling/sex. Put the electronics in a different room. Go in the bedroom when it's time for bed. Leave the bedroom when it's not. Sleep hygiene is important.
• nj65537 4y ago
  I'm reading this thread with css adjustments from the Dark Reader Firefox extension that I just learned about a few weeks ago, and damn, I am soooo happy with it.
• O__________O 4y ago
  I thought HN (aka dang) agreed to add a dark mode: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23199062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23199062 Am I missing something?
  • drivers99 4y ago
    Right now I’m reading HN on an iPad set to invert colors to make it dark. Settings -> Accessibility -> Accessibility Shortcut -> Classic Invert. With that on I can use triple click on the home button to toggle it.
• manchmalscott 4y ago
  Eh, I prefer dark mode aesthetically, and also I personally find that, at 4 am in a dark room where the only lights are a single desk lamp behind my monitors, and the monitors themselves, white backgrounds are painful. I’m willing to accept that if I was in a sunny room at high noon that light mode might be better.
  • is_true 4y ago
    I have all my screens with the blue light filter always on. I find it painful to watch other screens now
  • drivers99 4y ago
    They used to say it was bad for your eyes to watch TV without having a lamp on in the room. Looking it up now, it sounds like it causes eye fatigue but not damage.
    • manchmalscott 4y ago
      Yeah, having some back lighting definitely helps prevent eye fatigue. I can't do staring at monitors in a pitch black room anymore like I used to when I was in high school. Nowadays if I do that my vision gets,,,squishy.
  • GekkePrutser 4y ago
    Yes this is also because these days monitor engineers optimize for peak brightness and totally neglect minimum brightness specs. Because 600 nits looks great on a spec sheet and it's just difficult to regulate (backlight) LEDs over a huge brightness range without affecting color accuracy or causing excessive flickering. Nobody looks at the minimum spec if it's even provided. So what they tend to do is to have the low end of the brightness range way too high and often even use tricks like simply displaying a darker image (Rather than a darker backlight) which reduces color depth and accuracy even more. I use my otherwise excellent LG 24UD58 with brightness at 0% during the day! So during the night it's way too bright. You can accomplish this also by setting the contrast to a low value on screens where the brightness simply doesn't go that low. But some screens just incorporate this trick in the brightness control themselves. Also you can use software options of which dark mode is one. However all these methods (with the exception of dark mode!) result in screwed up color depth (and thus excessive banding also) and dynamic range. I grew up with white on black displays but these days I prefer black on white because it's easier to read with eyes that have astigmatism. But I end up using dark mode at night anyway because otherwise my display brightness just isn't bearable. What doesn't help is that I live in a hot country with no AC and during summer I usually live with the windows open at night and the lights off to avoid attracting bugs. So it's difficult. I really wish display builders would optimize for low brightness more.
• bee_rider 4y ago
  > Unless you’re using an OLED or AMOLED screen and your dark mode is truly black – not dark grey, not dark blue, BLACK. There is no difference in power consumption. Depending on the file I guess mini-LED could also consume less power with a dark theme, right? If a whole region could be dimmed. Is it true that an OLED displaying a dark color uses the same amount of power as one displaying a light color? I mean, clearly to get the full benefit you have to do full-black for the background, but I’d assume dark red should be less power than white. The main reason I side dark mode though is that text on a black OLED in a totally dark room appears to just be floating there, which is cool looking.
  • WXLCKNO 4y ago
    Seems right for microleds. However two years ago they weren't much of a thing for consumers. I think they still aren't in any significant way? Samsung has those massive microled tvs but I thought oled still reigned as the current king.
    • bee_rider 4y ago
      Err, I think I was thinking of mini-leds (edited in). Which are the ones that, for example, Apple uses in their laptops?
• Der_Einzige 4y ago
  BTW, the Astronomy community has known the correct answer forever, which is to ONLY use red light. This is achievable on OLED phones using software like (on android) Cf.Lumen, and setting it to a full redshift mode. You will notice literally ZERO eye strain, even in the middle of the night, when you use this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_effects_of_high-energy_visible_light#Concerns_regarding_prolonged_exposure_to_blue_LED_light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_effects_of_high-ene...
• alphabet9000 4y ago
  "dark mode" is nice in theory, but the effect is completely broken as soon as anything non-dark slips through. for instance (on windows at least) the program "OBS" uses a dark theme; in a recent version, when you open up any settings window, the window is drawn for a few milliseconds as a bright white square, before the dark window 'renders' [0]. this sudden strobe of white light, without warning, is worse than if the interface was just bright all the time (imo) this flashing light issue has also plagued chromium off and on for over 10 years. [1] [0] https://i.imgur.com/P9rM5A3.gif https://i.imgur.com/P9rM5A3.gif [1] https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=21798 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=21798
  • kitsunesoba 4y ago
    I don't know if it's a case of squeaky wheels or what (one set of users is more likely to complain than others) but I encounter "white flashes" with third party UI toolkits like you describe considerably less often under macOS than I do under Windows. Linux sits somewhere in between.
• Lev1a 4y ago
  For me having Dark Mode is actually better accessibility-wise. Since I've had cataracts (and the surgery fixing them) years ago my eyes are really sensitive to glare and generally bright lights (especially sun light and lightning flashes¹), meaning reading on screens in light mode makes my eyes and head hurt within minutes. ¹: which ever since having my natural lenses replaced by synthetic ones appear violet to me instead of the bluish-white before
• raydiatian 4y ago
  > A nice dark screen with light text is easier to read, right? Well, according to multiple studies, that’s wrong apparently In this sentence, I feel like I witnessed the author ascend straight up his own ass. Author is basically saying: “Objective studies show that [subjective topic] is actually…” > This post is day 04 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to get involved, you can get more info from https://100daystooffload.com https://100daystooffload.com. Ah, so it’s trendy yuppycore bs. That explains it.
• 2devnull 4y ago
  I prefer tie-dye mode.
• benced 4y ago
  “I like it” seems to be the only justification left for dark mode. Luckily, that’s a perfectly legitimate justification.
• innocentoldguy 4y ago
  I use dark mode because it masks all the damn floaters in my eyes, whereas light mode accentuates them.
• alpos 4y ago
  This post seems to boil down to, "I read a summary of one study, so I am confident in telling you all how wrong you are". Thanks but I'll let the scientific process play itself out over time. In the mean time, I appreciate that the public debate has induced phones, apps, and many web sites to give me the option to enjoy reading things all day without eye strain. The fact that more stuff defaults dark mode or follows a system setting also means I spend less time having to re-style sites with a browser plugin. This is probably already an endless back and forth like the editor wars but I'm okay with that as the long term status quo. It'll mean that most designers learn that they just have to use themes and include an option for either preference. Some even go as far as making their sites look good in both modes. It pleases my counter-culture senses to see them exploring more angles on the color wheel.
  • taneq 4y ago
    I think your summary here more or less applies to the entire debate, and many other similar debates. When did we forget that personal preference an entirely sufficient reason to make a personal choice? I don't use dark mode because a meta-analysis of opthalmological studies indicates it may improve eye health, I use it because I like it and my eyes feel more comfortable using it.
    • thayne 4y ago
      This 100%. I've seen things extolling the virtues of light mode, and I try it out for a little while, and I just don't like it.
    • lo_zamoyski 4y ago
      > When did we forget that personal preference an entirely sufficient reason to make a personal choice? I don't think anyone is forcing anyone to do anything. If you want to smoke cigarettes, you have the license to do so. But that doesn't mean there aren't objective reasons no to do so. Generally speaking, preferences aren't beyond scrutiny or axiomatic, or outside rational consideration. If a preference is meaningfully harmful (dark mode probably does not qualify), then in a rational person it tends to shift accordingly once the harmfulness is understood. Stubborn irrational preferences (like those that involve addiction) may require some effort or intervention to recondition them to conform with our objective good. At the very least, we ought to avoid indulging them.
• nokya 4y ago
  Light mode for me, always. I just lower the brightness level in night/dark settings and when in bed. I actually had to learn advanced config editor in Firefox to stop websites from forcing dark mode without alternative.
• jonnycomputer 4y ago
  I think I often prefer dark mode; but some user interfaces just get it wrong, and I find it harder to "get" the topography of the application windows.
• walterbell 4y ago
  Eye health for closeup (e.g. computer) work: Ambient lighting ~= screen brightness, whether light or dark Dark ambience = dilated pupil = 0.5 diopter decrease in lens focus Tear film over eyes helps focus: blink, yawn, monitor dehydration & humidity Best light: unfiltered daylight, e.g. window behind computer screen Artificial: high CRI LED, low flicker, low blue (e.g. 2700K Sylvane Truwave) For closeup glasses, fixed lens focal length at lens-screen distance 20-20-20: look out window, or 20+ foot distant object for 20s every 20m Daily exposure to natural light, with distance focusing for eye muscles
  • cole-k 4y ago
    Got a source/link for this? Seems like good advice that I can incorporate into my routine, but I want the non-TL;DR version.
    • walterbell 4y ago
      There are many sources for each. Web search or https://hn.algolia.com https://hn.algolia.com should find them.
      • cole-k 4y ago
        I'll take that as a "no." I appreciate the summary anyway, thanks.
        • walterbell 4y ago
          Instead of a low-effort comment implying that a high-effort summary with zero rebuttals has been conjured out of nothing, please ask any question, about any sentence, for which you cannot find a source on the first page of Algolia/Google after entering the sentence as a query. They have been discussed many times here on HN and there are excellent references in those earlier threads. Alternately, ask the nearest optician or ophthalmologist.
          • 4y ago
• null-shell 4y ago
  I think something might be wrong with my eyes but if I use dark mode even for a couple minutes and look away it causes some kinda ghosting.
• gnicholas 4y ago
  Dark Mode is definitely helpful when I'm reading late at night or early in the morning. I don't think any number of generic studies (not focusing on those use cases) would negate my own cognitive perception. YMMV, but mine sure doesn't! I do find that Dark Mode is not helpful in bright sunlight, and can lead to my iPhone screen acting like a mirror, which is not good. But that doesn't stop me from using it at night!
• oneoneonetwo 4y ago
  Wow. Read the article guys. He says eye strain is caused by blue light. That's why he uses light mode. That makes no sense. Blue light is ORTHOGONAL to the question of whether Dark Mode or Light Mode is better for your eyes. Does light mode cause eye strain does dark mode cause eye strain? Which is better for your eyes? He doesn't find any research studies comparing the two and he grabs an unrelated study and claims that blue light is the only source of eye strain. I can assure blue light is NOT the only source of eye strain. This article is biased. He's picking and choosing studies to support a biased agenda.
• bitwize 4y ago
  I switched Emacs back to light mode because light mode is, objectively, easier to read. One thing that helps with the "staring into a glowing rectangle of doom" thing is not having the background set to bright white. I was messing about with old Solaris when I found its terminal windows were much easier to read than xterm's white default. So I set my Emacs background to "OldLace" (#fdf5e6) rather than plain white.
• modzu 4y ago
  this dude should have a disclaimer that his poorly researched blog post does not constitute medical advice
• iambateman 4y ago
  Thanks to inspiration from Freek van der Herten, I switched to light mode. At the time, I didn’t appreciate the importance of minimizing the relative change of color when switching apps. Most of the websites I build are light, so using a light theme keeps things more consistent when switching back and forth. I don’t think light or dark makes much difference but the consistency helps me.
  • christophilus 4y ago
    The consistency is why I’m playing with light mode again. I’d stick with dark mode if all websites respected it. But many don’t— including HN! I’m tired of having random, blinding moments throughout the day.
• wincy 4y ago
  I was a big believer in dark mode for a long time, until I started trying to reduce my SAD symptoms during the winter time. I read this blog post here [0] after seeing it on HN, and ended up buying 28 100W equivalent bulbs and a 500W equivalent corn bulb. I get a pretty decent amount of light in my home office now, and light mode is essential on my workstation or it's almost impossible to even SEE anything on screen, since the external light will wash out the backlights of the LED. I bought some higher brightness monitors but am starting to realize all those years of using dark mode was just lending itself to me spending 8 hours a day working in a dark room and was making me depressed, especially in the winter. It's been interesting because my wife is complaining about feeling glum but I've been in a much better mood than I've been in the last few winters. We're talking about spending a few thousand dollars to get ultra bright lighting throughout the house instead of just in my office. [0] https://www.benkuhn.net/lux/ https://www.benkuhn.net/lux/
  • kitsunesoba 4y ago
    The monitor brightness struggle was something I encountered first a 3 or so years ago when I moved into place with big windows that got a lot of natural light during the latter half of the day, even in the winter. Garden variety 250-350 nit displays really struggle with that kind of light, even if it's indirect and the screen in question is matte. 400-450 nits I've found is about the minimum for universally usable display brightness indoors, assuming either a matte finish or good anti-glare coating (e.g. like that on newer MacBooks). If it's the sadly far more common mirror-type glossy displays found on damn near every laptop and non-enthusiast/pro desktop monitor out there, you're going to need 500-600 nits to cut through the glare.
    • wincy 4y ago
      This has absolutely been my struggle since upgrading my lighting. It’s also so difficult to find data about how bright a monitor actually is! I bought some 1440p “gaming monitors” that I think are around 450 nits, and these are just barely bright enough for my newly lit up office.
      • 4y ago
• gremlinsinc 4y ago
  honestly I can't tell if dark helps with my astigmatism as it's very slight and what not but I also have a light phobia. I can't deal with a bright overhead light anymore. natural and warm lights are better I can handle the sun fine but do like to find shade when I can. recently I bought rose tinted glasses mainly so when I had to deal with white screens I really didn't it's been awesome. they're clip ons so I've been wearing my glasses more often too. tldr: benefit to eye strain or not light aversion is also a very real thing and that can be averted by dark screens.
• sneak 4y ago
  TIL that people were using dark mode because of purported health benefits? black pixels are better than white pixels.
• VoodooJuJu 4y ago
  Light mode with healthy brightness and color temperature is superior to dark mode. I think dark mode is great until you figure out you can change the brightness on your display.
• almostdigital 4y ago
  Automatic dark/light mode tracking sunset/sunrise is the best of both worlds IMHO.
• jimbobimbo 4y ago
  To me, the biggest issue with dark mode is that it doesn't differentiate between chrome and content. Dark chrome helps light content pop, reduces distractions. Unfortunately, the moment one turns it (dark chrome) on, the content goes dark too. Depending on your eyesight, you might be OK. I for one can't look at dark content in light ambient conditions for longer than few minutes without discomfort.
  • esperent 4y ago
    > Unfortunately, the moment one turns it on, the content goes dark too This might be an artifact of your screen's limited contrast. Have you tried dark mode on an OLED screen?
    • drewtato 4y ago
      They meant that when you turn on Chrome's dark mode (for the browser UI) it also enables `prefers-color-scheme: dark` for websites. These are always synced as far as I know.
      • jimbobimbo 4y ago
        Thank you, I edited in (dark chrome) for clarity. "Chrome" here refers to windows and widgets surrounding content, not the browser specifically.
  • eyelidlessness 4y ago
    FWIW, and as a person who almost always prefers light mode but who’s also invested a fair bit of energy into getting dark modes right, one of the nuances of a good dark mode implementation is that it uses darker areas very similarly to light mode. A generally good light mode and its corresponding generally good dark mode will usually map: - Base background: white or slightly off white -> a dark enough grey or off-grey for good baseline contrast - Borders: darker on the grey scale -> dark enough to strongly contrast the base background, or omitted for bordered areas which are already that dark - Toolbars, window handles, other concrete “chrome” areas: darker than baseline, for both light and dark modes - Buttons and text: high contrast, dark in light mode, light in dark mode - Active items: accent color or outline for maximum contrast - Colors generally: the same hues except when other color perception preferences are chosen (for either mode), but generally a slightly lower saturation for dark mode backgrounds, and hue adjustments for color perception errors in color spaces All of this in my experience needs a lot of eyeballing but quite a lot could probably be approximated with good perceptual light and color models. But I’ll still prefer light mode most of the time.
• TacticalCoder 4y ago
  I'm using dark modes since my Atari 600 XL days. Then C64. Then Amiga. Then DOS. Sadly then then some Windows 3.1 and 95 where dark themes weren't a thing and I dearly missed my DOS text editors and tools (Norton Commander etc.), all dark. But thankfully Linux happened. I'm running my xterms with "reverse video" (aka a dark theme) on since Debian 1.1 or so (not Debian 11 but Debian 1.1). The parameter to xterm for "reverse video" is called "-rv". Emacs: dark theme since forever. Fun fact IntelliJ used to ship without a dark theme but everything was configurable, so I created my own dark theme for early IntelliJ (the only issue was broken font anti-aliasing on a dark background: solved by using a pixel perfect font). Nowadays? Dark themes everywhere of course and this blog post won't convince me to change.
• sturmeh 4y ago
  Dark mode allows you to use a high brightness and contrast setup in more lighting scenarios, you can't use high brightness in the darkness if 99% of the screen is white. Something could be said for appropriate lighting, but in the reality is your don't got to choose that all the time, and sometimes you just want to maintain the lighting situation because of another activity (maybe a baby is asleep in the same room, or you or someone else is watching a movie). There's nothing more jarring than lighting up a dark room with your phone because you opened up something that decides to predominately use white for some reason, besides the fact it definitely uses more power on an amoled display, which most displays are hopefully moving towards. I'm sure light mode appreciators are always on top of changing their display brightness, but I'm still curious how they deal with amoled displays.
• scalablenotions 4y ago
  Dark Mode doesn't hurt my eyes. Light mode does. "Something something science". Whatever.
• irjustin 4y ago
  Is it good for your eyes? No, but is it bad/destructive - definitely not. So that leaves it up to personal preference. The article seems to try to make an argument that non-darkmode is better, but the gap is so tiny it reminds me of the Coleman, Dvorak, QWERTY, etc arguments. The differences are so tiny just do what you want.
• mozman 4y ago
  I will always use dark mode, I feel it’s the best for my eyes and comfort. Maybe I am wrong but I made my choice.
  • midoridensha 4y ago
    You're wrong. A scientific study has proven you wrong. Similarly, a scientific study has proven that smoking is good for you and protects you from Covid.... (/s)
• nigamanth 4y ago
  I have been using an extension called "Dark Reader" which essentially converts every website into dark mode. I wasn't aware of the scientific and health concerns regarding dark mode. I do now realize that all websites don't necessarily have a black background. While I consider the website's points about dark mode, I disagree. Dark mode is easier to read - atleast for me and others. If a website doesn't have a dark mode, extensions always work. Maybe for some people like the author, light mode is better and that's a personal preference.
• nu11ptr 4y ago
  It seems likely the author was just into it because it is a fad. Here is why I use and like dark mode: My eyes feel better on both short term and long term use. It doesn't feel as uncomfortable on my eyes. Whether or not it is technically more readable or not doesn't matter to me. I don't need a study of a population to know what feels better to me. I'm a sample size of one, but the only one in this case that matters. Others are free to make their own choice. YMMV.
  • diffxx 4y ago
    Amen.
  • notfed 4y ago
    +1 Mine and your subjective experience of feeling pain/discomfort from lighter screens can never be disproven by science, so a sample size of 1 is all that is needed.
• mark_l_watson 4y ago
  I have trouble reading dark screen mode. Maybe because I am old? When I pair program or someone is screen sharing on zoom, I need to ask for the other person to switch modes. That said, dark themes look cool.
  • kagevf 4y ago
    Counter point - as I've gotten older, I find dark mode much easier on the eyes. But it depends on the time of day, and how much lighting is actually available.
• avidphantasm 4y ago
  Here here. I hate hate hate light text on dark backgrounds. I have to work harder to read, and as soon as I look away, I see ghosting everywhere for a few seconds. Complete rubbish dark mode is. I have blue eyes, ~-6.5 near-sighted correction, and a pretty bad astigmatism, so this may have something to do with it.
  • yashg 4y ago
    Same here. I can't tolerate light text on dark background. Same ghosting issue. I prefer light mode to dark mode anyday.
• asicsp 4y ago
  Dark mode doesn't work for me, probably due to astigmatism. But working most of the day in front of the screen causes eye strain. So, I tried `redshift` and that helped. These days I keep it at 3000K all the time. And I found that reading on my big computer screen with redshift is less straining compared to Kindle.
  • midoridensha 4y ago
    So many people are complaining about astigmatism here. I have it too, and I use dark mode just fine. Do your corrective lenses not correct for astigmatism?
• alphabettsy 4y ago
  I like dark mode, but possibly more important for me is Night Shift that changes the color temperature I think.
• alpos 4y ago
  Something I'd like to point out that seems to be consistently missing from the present studies and the discussions that come up every time this topic gets posted again. Not only are the "decide if this string of characters is a word" tests showing a maximum difference of around 30% for dark v light mode in simulated night with small fonts but, that's not what most people are doing most of the time when reading things and it's certainly not what programmers are doing when reading code. So that almost certainly does not translate directly to X% slower reading performance in real world scenarios. This real world vs lab test difference alone can easily account for why so many people assert that dark mode is better for them even though the evidence sometimes suggests it shouldn't be. And that doesn't score a point for either camp. It means there's still much we don't know. So any conclusions are tentative at best. Studies on the mechanics of reading, especially on the web, have shown that much of the time people are actually scanning and identifying whole phrases or sentences as one pattern. Hence I can write and the cow jumped over the moom and more than half the people who read that will not notice the second m swapped in. Same trick applies with jumped over the room. Which many will literally see as jumped over the moon even though two letters are different now and it's an actual different word at the end. It's even harder to see correctly because I already primed your memory with the typical phrase. Of course, people unfamiliar with that phrase won't have a problem with it. They have to parse each word anyway. No bigger pattern in memory. This is even worse when people are scanning whole web pages looking for patterns that might match content they are interested in. And most of the time programmers are reading blocks of text, it is to find an answer or concept they need in order to continue coding. Quoting the same group as in the OP: https://creativehandles.com/blog-posts/79/4-types-of-eye-tracking-patterns-how-people-don-t-read-on-web https://creativehandles.com/blog-posts/79/4-types-of-eye-tra... People do this in speech too, try making a statement to some friends that sounds phonetically similar to a common catch phrase or something you know they'd be triggered by but actually be saying something different and benign. See how often they react as if you said the common or triggering phrase anyway. For extra fun, follow up later and see how many people swear they actually remember you saying the thing you didn't say. I suspect this pattern recognition trick is even more at play in reading and writing code. When one is fluent in a language, we don't actually need to read the symbols to know what a block of code is doing. Structures are so deliberately similar that one can recognize conditionals and loops for what they are without reading the words "if" or "while", this goes on to the content of those blocks and any function calls as well. Many functions use similar names for similar actions in code regardless of the program space because humans being humans. To spot this one in action, take notice of how certain ways of writing particular programming patterns are jarring every time you read them, to the point that you feel the need to change it even though it's perfectly functional. It's not the code per se, it's the readability. It's particularly egregious when someone gets a pattern around 70 to 80% correct but then does something different for one or two components of the overall pattern. You get annoyed reading it because it's like hearing someone mispronounce a word or change one word in a commonly used phrase. The pattern is there in your brain, it starts to match, you build up an expectation that the next parts will match. If it does, satisfaction; if it doesn't, frustration. Now your brain has to do more work to read in and learn what the non-matching parts are doing. This expectation tells you that you would rather be pattern matching large blocks of code than reading each syntax element. When reading in this manner, it's actually more important to have proper syntax highlighting than any specific contrast ratio between the background and the text. I could totally see light mode being a consistent hindrance here too. Not sure about that but it would explain a lot about the prevalence of preferences in general population vs programmers. For good syntax highlighting you want a lot of colors that contrast against both the background and the other syntax elements. Some shades of yellow and green probably don't do as well against a white background as a dark one for example, especially if used for similar shaped elements that often show up close to each other. Regardless of how that goes, or if we ever even find out whether this matters to the light v dark debate, the nuances around the way humans read differently in different situations are not even being addressed in the studies yet. That observation alone should give people pause before confidently claiming to know anything here and certainly before asserting that someone is wrong to have the preferences they have. Just something to think about.
• timonoko 4y ago
  I have special version of context-aware-auto-brightness for the bedside computer. It is the best IMHO. It keeps the brightness just within the right limits. Dark modes are boosted just right and switching from dark to bright does not burn retinas. https://github.com/timonoko/Context-Aware-Auto-Brightness/blob/master/noko-auto-brightnessctl https://github.com/timonoko/Context-Aware-Auto-Brightness/bl...
• 23B1 4y ago
  Dark mode is good for my relationship when I have to work late – and not fill the entire bedroom with bright light.
• michaelteter 4y ago
  The light vs dark mode topic has come up several times on HN in the last few years, and it seems for one group that it is a religious conflict. That group seems especially (and aggressively) vocal in rejecting any observations or opinions from the other side. Each should use what they like, and eyes (and the brains that they depend on) are pretty unique. Therefore, I would not expect any two people to look at the same thing and agree completely on what they see - or how they feel about it. I do wish the dark mode proponents would accept that recording video or presenting in dark mode is usually a bad idea for two primary reasons. 1. Viewers may be in environments with high ambient light. Dark mode, viewed in a very bright environment, can be difficult or even impossible to see if the ambient brightness is very high. If it's a video on youtube, the viewer can choose to watch it another time when it's not so bright. (But that viewer may never return to view it later, so you've lost a viewer for whatever effort you put in.) My favorite example of when not to use dark mode is in conferences or live presentations. Projectors produce much dimmer output than monitors do, and most conferences are not given in total darkness. This is especially true if the environment has windows, such as an office meeting space. So keep this in mind if you are a presenter. You could put a lot of effort into making nice slides and having some animations, but your live audience may be practically unable to see most of it. 2. Video/image compression tends to result in poorer output for lower contrast content like dark mode syntax highlighted text. One can plainly see the loss of quality of syntax highlighted code text on dark mode video or stills. The net result is, again, that your audience gets less benefit from your content creation effort. That's a shame for everyone.
  • mtrower 4y ago
    I’d say it’s a religious issue for both groups. There are people on both sides of the fence who just want to use what’s comfortable (or use both situationally), and be left alone about it. Then there are those in both camps who want to convert others…
    • midoridensha 4y ago
      The dark mode proponents have a better reason to try to convert people: so they can actually use dark mode more. It's only been fairly recently that dark mode was even an option in most things, unless you just installed Linux and used a terminal all day long. The light mode proponents have never had this problem since the days of Windows 3.1. This isn't a case of just using what you prefer, because dark mode simply hasn't been available in most software, and still isn't (or isn't done very well) many times. It's similar to how Linux users appeared to make it a religious issue 10-25 years ago. Linux needed mindshare to be usable, or else you wouldn't have access to the software you needed to actually use Linux daily, so of course Linux proponents needed to push it hard so they could get support and mindshare. If all the software companies had "simply" made Linux versions of everything, so that anyone could simply choose Linux over Windows/Mac, this wouldn't have been necessary.
• alanbernstein 4y ago
  > A dark blob on a light background is far easier for the human eye to see, than the reverse. The reverse, a blob of light on a dark background, is the MOST visible thing. I stopped reading there.
  • mtrower 4y ago
    Yeah, I took issue with that as well. To be fair, I’d say they’re both easy to see. However, given a daytime silhouette vs. a bright light at night, the silhouette has many other blobs competing for attention.
• oredbored 4y ago
  Dark mode is slightly harder to read, but it's preferable to having 4 screens blearing bright white light at me all day.
• optymizer 4y ago
  If there's one thing I got tired of doing over two decades is changing settings. I switch machines often enough, so I just use the defaults. Eclipse: light mode Android Studio: light mode. IntelliJ: light mode VS Code: dark mode Text editing: light mode vim: dark mode (depends) Windows cmd: black background MacOS terminal: white background, unless I bother to launch a Pro themed window. Linux (Ubuntu): black terminal, white FreeBSD: black Whatever is there. The only customization I do is I manually edit my .vimrc and dump settings from memory. My eyes are doing fine, no glasses so far.
• Onewildgamer 4y ago
  I didn't like dark mode since the beginning, it was too much effort on my eyes. During the day, the room is well lit, why do we need a dark mode at all. And when it is night, we probably shouldn't be working. Or at least switch on the lights, we wouldn't want a dark mode then.
• wolpoli 4y ago
  Dark mode became popular in part because interface designers have decided to move away from the Windows 9x era black text on grey background theme to dark grey text on white background, causing the screen to become fully white and thus very bright.
• Sunspark 4y ago
  I like dark mode very much these days even during the daytime because I find staring at a bright white screen runs the risk of triggering a migraine. Dark mode screens don't do that. The contrast between pure white backgrounds and pure black text is too stark and causes greater eyestrain when it's directly transmitted light as opposed to reflected light. Displays in light mode that are reflective do not have this kind of strain because their background is more silvery. Turning down the brightness on a display is not really the solution because most displays use pulse width modulation so you are just exchanging brightness for flicker and strobing effects. I pose you this question, when it comes to paper, do you enjoy reading books that are printed on pure white paper which has had optical brighteners added to enhance the effect, or do you prefer a softer natural ivory or linen colour? Perhaps light gray? If so, then why should your screen be pure white?
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • TheCapeGreek 4y ago
    > If so, then why should your screen be pure white? This is what it boils down to for most people. Using a less-than-pure white or a cream colour like HN makes for a much more pleasant read. At night it's often still too bright for me, but I'm happy to switch modes according to how I feel at the time.
    • climb_stealth 4y ago
      I find it works to run something like f.lux at all times. Whenever I have to turn it off for whatever reason it comes as a shock how bright everything is. I can't imagine working with that all day. Basically, make light mode pleasant by using f.lux. Then there are no unpleasant transitions whenever something doesn't play along with dark mode.
      • TheCapeGreek 4y ago
        For me even with blue light blockers it's still too bright if my room is dark at night. When I turn it off (e.g. when the red intensity is very high for color quality in games) and switch to a light web page it's blinding.
• rammy1234 4y ago
  I see this research says white font on dark background is beneficial for myopia. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28904-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28904-x
• Daltzn 4y ago
  For my MacBook I keep “night shift” on at all times along with dark mode. I’ve not had an issue of eye strain since I switched to doing it a couple years ago. Occasionally I’ll switch back to light mode but find I am having to keep dimming the display as my eyes adjust to the new level. Never quite feeling comfortable. I know some have had success with those blue light glasses in terms of eye strain.
• anyfether 4y ago
  Check this out. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28904-x.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28904-x.pdf Black on white causes myopia.
• the_myth 4y ago
  I use dark mode because it looks cool, now go cry to your mama you light mode peasant.
• c_yh 4y ago
  Only discuss dark mode in coding, there are so many famous dark themes, but most of them are not suitable for use at night, for instance: nord, dracula, vscode's github dark, vscode's github dimmed dark(but it is perfect in the github's website, some key differences between them), all vscode's built-in dark themes and so on. They're terrible, because they use very bright colors for highlight or improper contrast or author's aesthetics: 1. The bright color in dark mode just like a car coming to you in the dark stabbing your eyes with its huge headlights. 2. The improper contrast may be that they do not turn on the lights at night? 3. The essence of code is text, the readability of text is always the first, aesthetics is secondary, the nord theme is elegant and clean, I like it but I will never use it for reading or coding. Dark mode is not intended for you to use in a purely dark environment, we need light at night even if you don't believe in god. Here are some positive examples: "Atom One Dark Theme" and "Solarized Dark Vim" in vscode, jetbrains Darcula(not dracula, which is the object of criticism above). So before answering the question of the title, we need to think: What should a correctly implemented dark mode look like?
• sourcecodeplz 4y ago
  I personally also keep the warm light display setting ON all the time: day or night.
• nwah1 4y ago
  Some people have photosensitivity, such as those with lighter colored irises. HN needs to add dark mode. Until then, I've been using this theme with the Stylus addon. Way better! https://userstyles.world/style/1898/hacker-news-dynamic-dark https://userstyles.world/style/1898/hacker-news-dynamic-dark
• Exendroinient00 4y ago
  Differences of dark and white for eyes are so minimal that debates on effects between a specific color of screen don't matter at all.
• friend_and_foe 4y ago
  > When I was in the military, a key tactic of camouflage was to never, under any circumstances, expose yourself on a hilltop or similar, where your silhouette could be easily identified. A dark blob on a light background is far easier for the human eye to see, than the reverse. There's a scenarion when this is incorrect: when the light foreground is the only source of light. I use black backgrounds with white text for reading on OLED because the only light entering my eyes is the information I need. You can tell me all you want that it doesn't reduce eye strain, it does. I can tell because I can feel my eyes.
• villgax 4y ago
  For me the Nord theme of greyish blue has been better than pure dark mode or blue coloured Solarized theme either. Thankfully twitter has this as an option as well. But I'm all for companies having 4 presets & one all out custom themeing if customers prefer it- White, Off-white/paper, dark(OLED black) & Nord(blue-grey)
• wbsun 4y ago
  I feel it is better for my eyes in all environments than bright mode. I am very nearsighted. But, both modes hurt your eyes as long as you have to read on screen or even on paper. My aunt used to be pretty nearsighted as a student (-6.00 on both eyes), after she graduated and started a job that only required a little reading, her vision improved dramatically to better than -1.50 within a year. A few years later she completely got rid of eye glasses.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• rikschennink 4y ago
  I have a bunch of eye floaters in both eyes. If I read text without dark mode enabled I see the floaters hopping from word to word as if I’m singing in a karaoke bar.
• hans_castorp 4y ago
  I absolutely loath dark mode. My eyes hurt after 1 or 2 minutes when I am forced to read things in dark mode. I even installed a plugin in Firefox to disable dark mode on sites that don't allow this (or do not support "reading mode" properly)
  • notfed 4y ago
    And my eyes hurt after 1-2 minutes when I am forced to use light mode. My life is better after realizing this. Clearly everyone is different. It's discouraging to see the number of people in this thread not understanding this. I'm glad the general consensus in technology is to offer us customization.
• npteljes 4y ago
  Dark mode is unusable for me, maybe because of the slight astigmatism in one of my eyes. What works is bright mode, warmer colors, and lowering the brightness.
• AlphaGeekZulu 4y ago
  There is an important factor that is almost always ignored in the discussion: the screen/monitor size. I use a LG 27" Monitor on my working place and the amount of light that is emitted in light mode is literally blinding (as in snow-blind). Turning down brightness enough to become bearable badly affects contrast and chromaticity. That is the good thing on dark mode: that colorful content remains unaffected. For me it is dark mode on large screens and light mode on phones and tablets.
• wwalexander 4y ago
  I don't understand how this debate has become about which mode is biologically the most optimal for legibility. The obvious, clear benefit of dark mode is that there's less light, which feels more comfortable to many, many people. I'm curious, how many of my fellow dark-mode users also struggle with migraine headaches? Perhaps this and other light-sensitivity afflictions can explain why dark mode seems to be so contentious...
  • daveoc64 4y ago
    It's because there's a common trope online that people say seeing something in light mode is "blinding" or "makes my eyes bleed". I think it's therefore important that the actual benefits of dark mode are tested scientifically and not just assumed.
    • wwalexander 4y ago
      Is it not enough that a person feels very strongly that one way is more comfortable for them? Why must we quantify when someone is physically uncomfortable? Theoretically it would be probably be optimal in terms of the science of visual perception to flood my room with the brightest white light possible, instead of using my usual dimmed yellow lights. It would also make me feel subjectively terrible (like my eyes were bleeding) so I don’t do it, and I don’t need a study to back it up.
      • daveoc64 4y ago
        > Is it not enough that a person feels very strongly that one way is more comfortable for them? Well, no. If people think something is helping their eyesight, but it's really making it worse, that's a problem. A lot of dev and gamer oriented sites/apps have a dark mode because it's trendy. Whether it is objectively better is something I'm very interested in, especially as there are some things (e.g. Twitch's theatre mode) that only offer a dark mode.
        • wwalexander 4y ago
• mcv 4y ago
  I think the issue is a lot more subtle than simply "dark mode = better" vs "light mode = better". When it's dark around me, I don't want a bright white screen blinding me, so I prefer dark mode. But when I'm in a well-light room with a white wall behind my screen, I don't want to have to peer at a dark rectangle. Also, whether you're using dark or light mode, contrast and brightness need to be set right, and I think they have different requirements for contrast and brightness; in dark mode, I suspect the fewer bright parts need to be brighter than the large light background in bright mode. So if you're comfortable using your current mode, simply switching to the other one without adjusting your contrast and brightness might indeed give you a worse experience, no matter which mode it is. Or maybe not. I seem to be fine mixing different modes. I used to always have my IDE in bright mode, but it's currently in dark mode, and it's fine, and HN uses bright mode, and that's fine too. But I did notice that when it's dark, I do prefer dark mode.
  • hkon 4y ago
    Exactly, the glare from dark backgrounds in daylight is very straining on my eyes.
  • adql 4y ago
    Many dark mode themes also aren't great. With bright mode you can get away with #000 on #fff but, at very least for me, just reversing that doesn't work all that well, I prefer at the very least background to be in #111-#222 range and maybe text not be in #fff but a bit lower. On other side some dark themes have pretty terrible contrast, but that happens with white too, like HN just deciding light gray on light gray is fine just because someone downvoted a comment Hell, even the header with buttons have [1] terrible contrast * [1] https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=939392&bcolor=F6F6EF https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=939392&...
    • 867-5309 4y ago
      web developers have not been using #fff and #000 for text and backgrounds for quite some time now
    • hbn 4y ago
• cm-t 4y ago
  It might not best for your eyes, but it is also not good for the health (for those who are diagnosed with migraine probably understand what I mean)
• suprjami 4y ago
  I've read a couple of other posts about this (below) so I finally decided to give light mode a try for a week. I've switched to all Solarized Light terminal/editor/Firefox/GTK and turned off dark mode in the websites where that's a setting. https://stitcher.io/blog/why-light-themes-are-better-according-to-science https://stitcher.io/blog/why-light-themes-are-better-accordi... https://medium.com/codesphere-cloud/should-you-really-be-coding-in-dark-mode-1c34c7cf5f99 https://medium.com/codesphere-cloud/should-you-really-be-cod...
  • tmtvl 4y ago
    Solarized Light was my gateway drug to light mode, and I later switched over to using Modus Operandi in Emacs, which really made me appreciate proper light themes. If you use Emacs and/or Konsole you may like it.
    • suprjami 4y ago
      That's cool. I've looked at the Modus themes before but I think the light version is a bit too light for me. All-white pages are so bright they kinda hurt my eyes. Maybe I need to turn the monitor brightness down...
  • coffeeling 4y ago
    Funny, I can't stand Solaris and usually want more contrast. Most light themes for code editors follow a low contrast uniform hue approach and I just don't jive with that. I've ended up liking Visual Studio Blue a lot for VSCode: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DanijelMalinovic.visual-studio-blue-theme https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DanijelM... Then again, I think most new light themes are just designed wrong: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33961645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33961645
• gjadi 4y ago
  Changes are good! Sometime, when I want a change of perspective, I switch to different theme for a couple of days/weeks/months and then change again, and again, and again... I've noticed just changing the theme can help refocus. It is a bit like changing the layout of your house to bring changes to your life. (only it's so much easier with M-x customize-theme)
• unglaublich 4y ago
  Just turn the brightness down... that's the real 'dark' mode.
• ranting-moth 4y ago
  >When I was in the military, a key tactic of camouflage was to never, under any circumstances, expose yourself on a hilltop or similar, where your silhouette could be easily identified. A dark blob on a light background is far easier for the human eye to see, than the reverse. This is a strange argument for dark/light mode. It might be easier to see, but can you imagine how tired your eyes would get if you were looking for/at dark blobs on a hilltop all day? I wouldn't last an hour. I'm fine with this guy preferring light mode. I've tried them both for many years each and I much prefer dark mode for my own well being.
• qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  In my stint in factory automation, the night mode vs day mode acceptance dependent heavily on the light properties inside the factory. With flooding daylight, the only thing acceptable was light mode, with artificial light - controlled light, usually used to decouple the workers from theire feeling of time or in nightshifts, the dark mode was prefered. So my theory is, dark mode is prefered, were irregular times or crunch is prefered. Lightmode is in open, daylit offices or home offices, were you value & keep track of your time and life.
• INTPenis 4y ago
  Such odd arguments, it's very simple to me. The problem is really that we like to work late, with bad lighting. All this would be resolved if we had proper lighting, as is mandated in every Swedish office in fact. But I like working late from home, so I have very poor lighting a lot of times. Therefore bright applications and websites hurt my eyes more than darker ones.
• t0bia_s 4y ago
  On AMOLED display I using dark background almost everywhere, fortunately most apps have option to switch to true black theme. I also recommend plugin Dark Reader for Firefox browsers. Similar story is for desktop except true black is not necessary and I prefer dark gray background for less contrast with font. White 27' monitor at evening is heavy for my eyes, even with 25% brightness, that I need for keeping calibration values. Filter of blue light on phone is also very usefull at evening, I get easily tired. However... For example for photography portfolios on web I prefer white background, especially for BW. I guess it reminds me more natural, paper white bacground, like prints has. So it depends...
• gadflyinyoureye 4y ago
  Dark mode is a good shibboleth for who’s old. I’ve seen it working with people under 30. All the young folk have dark mode. The old folk mostly use light, with some using dark high contrast. If you have an interview with a person and they use light, it can be a proxy for age to help weed out the gray beards.
• kypro 4y ago
  My issue when using dark mode was the inconsistency between windows. I noticed I was getting extreme eye strain because I kept alt tabbing from apps that supported dark mode to apps that didn't. That constant change from light to dark screens was far more straining to my eyes than my screen being consistently bright. I quite like the sepia night mode settings though. I don't find it helps with sleep as some claim, but it does seem to make the screen slightly easier to look at for longer periods.
• d--b 4y ago
  It's the contrast that matters! Black on white hurts White on black hurts I use dark gray on light olive (sort of like HN's background). But light gray on dark gray works fine too.
• amai 4y ago
  Nature says yes: „Therefore, 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.“ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28904-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28904-x
• Mohune 4y ago
  There is no definitive answer to this question, as different people may have different experiences with using dark mode. Some people find that dark mode helps reduce eye strain, while others may find it more difficult to read text on a dark background. Ultimately, the best way to determine if dark mode is good for your eyes is to try it out for yourself and see how it affects your eyesight. If you notice any discomfort or difficulty reading, you may want to switch back to a lighter color scheme.
• VLM 4y ago
  As with most "medical" discussions online, something like being "good for your body part" rapidly turns into anything other than scientific medical evidence. Much like how its impossible to discuss something like diet scientifically online. The fad aspect should not be overlooked. Originally, "light mode" GUIs on CRTs was something of a fools errand because most CRTs are somewhat non-linear so light mode emphasized waviness and interference patterns and outright astigmatism. Occasionally "light mode" was a bragging point that your hardware could handle it and your GUI was designed to cooperate with the limited hardware of the day (think original 80s 90s apples). Around the turn of the century "light mode" became a financial status symbol that you can afford a "perfect" LCD display, so only the coolest people used light mode. Now, 2010 is too old to be stylish so obviously the opposite of light mode is "dark mode" and that is the pinnacle of style because it proves you're using something designed or redesigned post 2015 or so. Just the usual conspicuous consumption oneupsmanship. Another aspect rarely mentioned is distraction / ADD / working conditions. Obviously dark mode on a glossy screen provides something of a perfect mirror to see your surroundings which is usually distracting to normal people in normal conditions. For those with ADD or easily distracted in a tightly packed open office its practically an ADA issue to force them to use dark mode. If I must have a glossy screen I find it vastly less distracting to use light mode. Turn up the brightness so its not the brightest thing in the room but its brighter than the endlessly moving reflections on the screen and light mode looks pretty good.
• manmal 4y ago
  Those night light tools (flux etc) don’t remove that much blue light. Reducing light output (eg by, ahem, using dark mode) is the surest way to reduce blue light emissions.
  • tryfinally 4y ago
    Precisely. TFA misses this point completely: "A better remedy for eye strain would be to enable night light on your operating system, which will reduce the your screen’s blue light output." I simply use both, checkmate.
• pentaphobe 4y ago
  Nothing screams tech bro like "I used to be one of those techbros who did <thing I just stopped doing>" Source: I got "very pure" on the tech bro purity test
  • gyulai 4y ago
    I'd like to agree, and elaborate. The use of the "tech bro" stereotype in the article really rubs me the wrong way. It's a complete rhetorical low blow. It's identifying the opposite of the author's opinion with a group, and then portraying that group in a way so that the reader would rather distance themselves from that group than identify with that group. This triggers in-group/out-group psychology along the lines of: "My enemy's enemy must be my friend", or "My opinion should probably be the opposite of the opinion held by people I don't like." ...an obvious logical fallacy. In the compound "tech bro" it's actually the word "bro" that does the heavylifting to make the group unsympathetic. The rhetoric wouldn't work with "techies", but would work equally well with "frat bro". Outside of the U.S., "bro" is not even a readily recognizable cultural stereotype at all. For example people in the tech sector in Europe who are in their 50s and who like how dark mode reminds them of IBM terminals that existed back when they were young might have a preference for dark mode, but they surely don't fit the stereotype of a "tech bro". Young people into gaming aesthetics might like it too, but they aren't always tech bros. Preferences for light mode / dark mode are pretty much subjective personal preferences or maybe to some extent culturally ingrained, but in a way that has little or nothing to do with being a "bro". It's like saying: "So you like to have a lot of black on your screen? Do you know who else liked black? Mussolini! So, do you still want all that black on your screen now, like a fascist pig? Or do you do what I tell you to do now, and set your screen mode to light?"
    • pentaphobe 4y ago
      Excellent elaboration, thanks! You eloquently summed up exactly the thought process & distaste I experienced but in a way which adds some conversational pithiness rather than the pablum of my throwaway jest. 10 points to gryffindor!
• iainctduncan 4y ago
  I can attest that if you are a migraineur, these things absolutely make a difference. When mine are borderline or I am recovering, changing the colour and redshift on my monitors can make the difference between being able to do some work and triggering a full blown headache. It's as noticeable as someone turning up the volume on a sound to me. Whether it matters to all the people all the time is a different question. But it 100% makes a big difference to many people.
• mystickphoenix 4y ago
  Sample size of 1 but dark mode is a godsend when I'm on the verge of a migraine. Being flash-banged every time I go to a website is a quick trip to pain and nausea town.
• Sugimot0 4y ago
  Typical internet contrarian: "The trend is wrong! I knew it! Read this!" points at anecdote + straw man confidently
• smckk 4y ago
  control option command 8
• hxugufjfjf 4y ago
  I am so "addicted" to dark mode that I plain refuse to use any software which doesn't offer it, or there is no alternative to workaround change it, like DarkReader for web pages or other "hacks" like we had to for Slack back in the day.
• ngcc_hk 4y ago
  Sadly no conclusion in the discussion here, other than many different opinions. It is important and I feel good to read in dark mode. But really want to nail it. Did try to get yellow light e-ink but not as nice as reading on ipad. Continue to struggle then.
• YVoyiatzis 4y ago
  Some people, self included, may find that dark mode is easier on their eyes because it reduces the amount of blue light that is emitted by the screen. Blue light can cause eye strain and fatigue, so reducing the amount of blue light can help to make your screen more comfortable to look at.
• deafpolygon 4y ago
  I prefer light mode most of the time, but where I am sitting is dark enough, often enough - that I need to switch off to mostly-dark mode. I'll keep whatever I am reading in a lowered brightness. DARK READER extension for Firefox (and other browser) have a mode for both. You can set light mode with lowered brightness - white stays white, but is much less glaring. Another anecdata key factor here is - too many people have their fonts set too small, myself included. I find that when I turn up the font sizes, my eye strains far less irrespective of my dark/light mode settings.
• yashg 4y ago
  Found this cartoon on the topic https://imgur.com/QN1t9d4 https://imgur.com/QN1t9d4
• mattymf 4y ago
  If you're saying blue light is actually a leading cause of eye strain, then how can you conclude that dark mode doesn't help with that? A large white background has significantly more blue light than a black or gray background. It is already known that dark text on a light background is easier to read in general, but with all the blue lights shining in your eyes it is certainly worth it to toggle dark mode throughout the day to let your eyes rest. The light text on a dark background should not be difficult to read if the environment outside the screen is bright enough. Your point about fine details becoming washed through dilation is true, but only relevant if you are reading in the dark. In which case turning on a light fixes that issue entirely. Dark Mode _is_ good for your eyes, especially if you are feeling fatigued from reading so much text in light mode. Get a toggle dark mode reader for your browser! You don't have to choose one or* the other, but rather toggle as your eyes are feeling fatigued, or take a walk.
• helloworld11 4y ago
  Anecdote here, but any time I use dark mode even for a few minutes, it makes my eyes feel awful, and leaves ghostly shadows of text lines in my vision for up to a minute or two after leaving the screen. Reading anything in light mode on the other hand doesn't cause me much trouble even after hours of doing it nearly without interruption.. I have a hard time believing that i'm the only one. Personally, I detest dark mode and have never understood why so many people recommend it.
• uzbit 4y ago
  Photons was only mentioned 4 times at the time of this writing. I appreciate low frequency waves when my eyes are adjusted to those low frequencies. Same as another would high frequency. Is my red the same as yours? My blue is very significant; in this way we experience colors.