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.
> 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".
Most/all of the points were well known back in the days when I used CRT monitors - he's not reporting something new. In fact, reading some of the comments, I'm quite surprised people still believe there are inherent benefits to dark mode. There's not really much research supporting it.
It's just a preference thing. I myself prefer it as I grew up on terminals where dark was the default (and often, the only option). For those who prefer the opposite: Totally OK.
> In fact, reading some of the comments, I'm quite surprised people still believe there are inherent benefits to dark mode. There's not really much research supporting it.
That's actually kind of ridiculous.
I don't need to read other's research about dark mode to know how it lessens eye-strain. I have performed the experiment myself with my own eyes.
Just as I don’t need research either to know that dark mode inherently increases eye strain thanks to the afterimages caused by using it for more than a couple dozen seconds at a time. I have my own two eyes after all, and plenty of other eyes across the web agree.
> Just as I don’t need research either to know that dark mode inherently increases eye strain thanks to the afterimages caused by using it for more than a couple dozen seconds at a time.
You've probably got your brightness too high if you're getting after images.
I use darkmode when I'm inside and turn my monitor brightness down. When I'm outside, I switch to lightmode and max out my monitor display. Work for me.
I suspect this is an extremely difficult question to answer until we have a perfect model of humans. Maybe there is some gene/mutation that affects something to do with brightness/darkness. Maybe there is some adaptation that happens after staring at at dark/light mode.
Unfortunately we are extremely far from having good models of the human body :(.
It’s too dim and too low contrast for me when I dial it down and leaves afterimages when it’s enough. It is a personal thing.
Also, for programming I’m using not dark nor bright mode. Something like #ddd on #444 on well-calibrated settings. Almost all sites which implement dark mode are much closer to #neutron_star on #black_hole than that, so I hate them when they fail to follow an OS setting.
It's probably because you're using light dark text, on a dark background. To maximize eye-strain reduction:
* reduce monitor brightness
* increase contrast between background and text
For me, light grey background (no blaring, eye smashing white) with black text works well. The only point of "grey not white" is again, to reduce a smashed-in-the-face white background.
If one keeps the contrast difference low, that is, slightly-lighter dark text on dark background, then the monitor must be brighter to discern difference between text and background.
(Of course, as you have stated, this may not work for you.)
err well- anecdotal evidence may be a good basis for a theory that could be validated using an experiment, but it does not suffice to be calling somebody elses' argument ridiculous...
My comment does not mention anecdotal evidence but a person using their eyes to perform an experiment. That is clearly not anecdotal.
It is ridiculous for people with eyes to not use their own eyes except to read studies as to whether their own eyes prefer light or dark. That should be obvious.
> My comment does not mention anecdotal evidence but a person using their eyes to perform an experiment. That is clearly not anecdotal.
It is clearly anecdotal [1] at the very least to everyone else that reads your comment. It is also clearly insufficient to draw any scientifically valid conclusions.
That a hand over fire will burn you is not a subject of dispute. Everyone who attempts it knows it. That dark mode is better for the eyes very much is a subject of dispute, and many have tried it and disagree it is better.
> It is clearly anecdotal [1] at the very least to everyone else that reads your comment. It is also clearly insufficient to draw any scientifically valid conclusions.
You are simply repeating something enough that you believe it to be true. You are misinformed about the meaning of the word anecdotal [1] and appear to be playing word games between "anecdotal", "anecdotal evidence", and a misunderstanding of what I wrote.
> It is also clearly insufficient to draw any scientifically valid conclusions.
What is the "it" in your comment? An experiment that someone performs is not anecdotal. [2]
Your own link starts with "Anecdotal evidence is evidence based only on personal observation." Even if you actually performed some experiment on yourself, unless you had some outside method of calculating eye strain it would still be anecdotal evidence.
The problem with this approach is that it is biased towards short term effects at the cost of long term effects and when you realize this it's too late already. "Feels better" is obviously a very good heuristic and usually what's good short term is probably more likely to be good than bad long term and millions of people rely on this heuristic but it's good to be aware of the shortcomings of this approach.
Came here to say the same. A good example is low-quality sunglasses that don't block UV light. Pupils dilate when wearing sunglasses, because there's less light coming in. Dilated pupils let more UV light in compared to naked eye vision. Subjective experience might be relief, yet it's at the cost of long-term retinal health.
> OMG didn't expect to see the "I know this is true and I don't need researchers telling me otherwise" argument here.
And, you didn't see that here. That you would even think that shows that you didn't read what was written.
It is ridiculous to wait for what others say about whether dark or light mode strains one's eyes more, since each person already has a pair of eyes to test what works for them.
Which, to be honest, is just a more contrived way of saying "I know this is true and I don't need researchers telling me otherwise". It is only anecdotal evidence in any case.
> I don't need to read other's research about dark mode to know how it lessens eye-strain. I have performed the experiment myself with my own eyes.
That is exactly the same as "I know this is true and I don't need researchers telling me otherwise".
> It is ridiculous to wait for what others say about whether dark or light mode strains one's eyes more, since each person already has a pair of eyes to test what works for them.
That's not how having eyes works - you are physically incapable of measuring eye strain yourself without external equipment and rigorous scientific process. Your subjective perception of reality is not objective reality itself, and your perceived comfort level is not consistent with the actual strain being put on your body, full stop.
Your logic of "each person already has a pair of eyes to test what works for them" directly implies that things that feel good are good for you, which is objectively not how the body works.
Can I interest you in some homeopathic remedies or a bottle of snake oil? Maybe prayer? History is full of people who thought/think their bias and anecdotal evidence is good enough.
Those are some very poor comparisons. Maybe if someone is claiming that dark mode or light mode have long-term effects on your health, but what people are actually claiming is just that they find one or the other more comfortable. There’s no meaningful scientific “truth” to that beyond a person’s own stated preference, just like there’s no scientifically most comfortable pair of pants or best color of wall paint. For what it’s worth, my preference of pants is definitely biased and based on anecdotal evidence. I have a pair of legs to test it with myself.
These comparisons are entirely correct and accurate.
The linked article is about objective measures of eye strain and health. Unless someone explicitly says otherwise, it's very reasonable to assume that they're also discussing those objective measures instead of subjective perception. If not - they're completely off-topic and they shouldn't be commenting here.
In particular, the comment earlier in this thread "I don't need to read other's research about dark mode to know how it lessens eye-strain. I have performed the experiment myself with my own eyes." doesn't say "my subjective perception of eye-strain", so we can assume that they're referring to the objective measurements, as is the actual topic for the thread.
I think this illustrates well how we have to be careful with our arguments around quack medicine.
The problem with "works for me" is not that that argument is invalid in and of itself. The problem is that homeopaths don't actually know that it works for them. What healed your infection and what did and didn't help is almost impossible to know.
Dark mode is very different. "do I have eyestrain after 4 hours of work" is easy to answer, and dark mode can be toggled with a single click to see how it affects you.
“Science” is such an empty word, though. “Knowledge” and “research” are more concrete, and you can always ask whether knowledge is reliable and where its limit lie, and whether research is trustworthy.
Not everyone has eyes, on-average, the same as yours. E.g. I have astigmatism and dark-mode (crisp bright lines/dots on dark backgrounds) wreck absolute havoc on my ability to focus and read. And promoting "dark mode is good no matter what", forcing us to objectively think that we should be using it despite our medical conditions, is not helpful.
I do think it is a preference thing, but I also believe not all eyes are the same. I am myself visually impaired, and it is _so much_ easier to read a screen in dark mode. That is likely a different experience with healthy and eyes, but not all healthy eyes are the same either.
I mean it depends also on the type of looking you are doing. When I write actual prose the way I have to focus on text is different than when I code (which requires a more two-dimensional focus). P
For me personally I am fine with black on white on the former while I prefer dark mode on the latter.
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.
Same here. I don't need some silly scientific study to tell me what is best for my eyes. It is light mode, all the way.
It's ridiculous to think that all our eyes are the same, and that some study can determine what is best for everyone.
And it's not that I've only used light modes and don't know any better. Our eyes and preferences change over time.
I grew up on what might be called "light modes": Teletype paper with black print on yellowish paper, and then punch cards and 11x13 fanfold paper with the white and green alternating stripes.
Later I spent many years using "glass teletypes" and the IBM Monochrome Display, both with green-on-nothing. I guess you would call that a dark mode.
When I started using Windows in the mid-1980s, I adapted to "light mode", but I had to turn the background down to a medium gray because even on a high end CRT display of the day, the flicker was so awful and it was less noticeable with a subdued background.
Then high-quality LCD displays came along and the flicker went away. Around the same time, my eyes were changing. I developed astigmatism, and even with good single vision prescription lenses (a must!) I found that text was much easier to read in a light mode. Perhaps for the same reason that I now have more trouble driving at night than I used to.
There is one bit of science to this: the light background causes your eyes' irises to stop down, and just as with a camera lens, this can result in a sharper image than a wide open aperture.
But again, my eyes are not your eyes, and I'm not disputing your preference for a dark mode.
I will say that one key to using a light mode successfully is to turn the brightness down. And maybe turn your room lighting up a bit. Someone else in the thread mentioned this, but a white background on your screen should be about the same brightness as a white sheet of paper in the same lighting conditions.
> 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.
> I don't think anyone is forcing anyone to do anything.
Au contraire, the problem is literally that we are forcing people. People are claiming medical issues (on both sides), too, so this is probably going to end up in some future debates about accessibility rules/laws.
You have the right to put a flashlight up to your eyes for 8 hours/day, you do not have the same right to do this to me.
I have many reasons to distrust a study like this anyway, just like a lot of medical studies trying to find causations in everyday activities.
1. If the results aren't controversial it probably wouldn't get published ("dark mode is good for your eyes" is a boring result)
2. They can discard results that contradict the thesis without having to make them public.
3. How many people do we need to trust the results of a study like this? Whatever the number you think of, they probably used less than that.
When it comes to stuff like this, you can probably find studies stating the opposite anyway, it's not like there's a consensus on this stuff.
Look, darkmode, and the bluelight fear is not really based on that much science.
Yes, UV and top end blue does cause cataracts in people, but thats from the sun, not monitors.
There are at least two strands to darkmode, one is the "It stops me from sleeping" and the other is eye strain.
the sleeping part is almost certainly nothing to do with the colour temperature of the light coming out of your device. If you go outside at dusk, you will note that its overwhelmingly blue in most places, most of the year (in london its orange for an hour in april and october.) yes, sunset tends to be orange, but the long bit after (again depending on longitude) is overwhelmingly blue.
The moon casts blue light.
You can't get to sleep because you've been hooked on twitter/instagram/ticktok and are revved up because that's what they do. "YOU NEED TO DO THIS NOW" or "THE SITUATION IS REALLY BAD, BECAUSE YOU DIDNT X" and "OMG THEY ARE SO HOT" finally "YOU ARE FAILING BECAUSE YOU DIDNT DO THIS ONE OLD WEIRD TRICK"
You have tension headaches because you've been frowning at a screen for many hours. Or you've not blinked, looked up moved your eyes, or generally changed position.
Now, there are some people for whom this doesn't apply, and that blue light is the cause of their woes. But for 99.5% of you, it won't be.
Thanks, this was new information for me. I always noticed how moonlight on snow looks blueish. But per the Wikipedia article on moonlight[1], this is apparently an illusion:
The color of moonlight, particularly around full moon, appears bluish to the human eye compared to other, brighter light sources due to the Purkinje effect. The blue or silver appearance of the light is an illusion.
The comment you’re responding to is nonsense. They clearly don’t suffer from severe insomnia. Dark modes have been a godsend for me when it comes to falling asleep.
There’s no doubt that the stimulation from something like TikTok as opposed to reading a Gutenberg ebook has more to do with the content than the light emitting from your phone. The notion, however, that the light of the phone (or other screen) has nothing to do with mental stimulation is utter nonsense. Brighter light is more stimulating. Period. The details of blue light versus dark mode are completely secondary to the primary concern of a bright white screen with black text opposed to the opposite.
I suffer from severe insomnia. For quite a long time, I've used blue light filters and automatic dimmers on all my devices with screens. A few months ago, when I discovered that there are no studies that clearly confirm the benefits of those things, I decided to stop using them to see for myself.
So far, there is no observable difference. Now, I'm not going to claim that this is therefore obviously the case for everybody else. But, at the very least, it's not universally a "godsend".
I don’t use a blue light filter (my insomnia isn’t severe, but I’ve definitely been diagnosed). There is a palpable difference for me reading before bedtime with light text on a black background instead of black text on white. The gist of my comment was that the blue filter doesn’t matter. In fact, I’m sure the white text is emitting blue light. The point is that the total lumens is much more critical.
My experience has been widely anecdotally backed up in casual conversation in my life (including by a sleep specialist). The blue light stuff is a marketing ploy in my opinion. I’m mentioning blue light repeatedly because you highlighting this makes it seem like I failed to communicate my point. Dark mode, however, is universally a godsend (see “anecdotal evidence” acknowledgement).
Perhaps you’re not a reader? As an insomniac, the only excuse for not reading to fall asleep is ADHD or other focus problems. It’s too ideal a solution for insomnia not to be acknowledged in this context. Please forgive my inflammatory tone, but I tend to doubt you having severe insomnia (coupled with routine in-patient/out-patient sleep studies, medication, etc.) and not being able to follow the flow of my communication here. Having a hard time falling asleep and being diagnosed with severe insomnia are very different.
The moon wasn't the predominant source of light at night for most pre-industrial people. Fire was, and is what we evolved with, which is likely why red light doesn't cause your eyes to constrict (https://thehikingauthority.com/red-light-night-vision-a-myth...)
I would hesitate to believe that crowds sitting around a bright fire at night will produce more viable offspring than those fumbling in the dark away from the light.
The evolutionary mechanism for selecting blue-sensitive rod cells in our retinas along with red-sensitive cone cells must surely be unrelated to the sodium emission spectrum, given that so may other mammals have similar retinas but lack fire-making skills.
I don't know enough about the relevant physiology to judge the article as a whole, but this bit is not correct:
"That’s why military grade night vision goggles always use a green light. You get a much clearer sight picture with extra contrast while preserving most of the night vision once the light gets shut off."
The trend these days is towards white phosphor in NVDs. This is because, while green is indeed better if you have to look at it and away repeatedly in low light, white is significantly better at producing high-contrast images. And you do want high contrast to be able to spot things when it's dark.
Blue wavelength does have an effect on sleep. The photoreceptors linked to the suppression of melatonin are most sensitive to blue light. And melatonin is associated with the sleep-cycle regulation.
Now re-read the post you're actually replying to and notice that I didn't say anything like what you appear to be responding to.
I've never been worried about blue light. I sleep fine. And stayed away from social media because it seemed unhealthy to me from the start, so I've never been hooked on twitter/instagram/tiktok. I actually feel for the people who are obsessed with it, especially the number of journalists who seem to have defined their jobs and role in life around reporting what was said by whom on twitter. There seems to be a small trend forming around people exiting that particular sink hole and realizing immediate improvements in their life experience. I hope that situation continues to improve, but that's up to each person to decide whether social media is helpful or harmful for their life and goals.
While I do spend a lot of time in front of a screen, I also get up regularly, stretch, walk around, take the dog out for a walk, etc. So I don't get tension headaches. If I feel uncomfortable at all, I do something about it.
Your reply here makes a lot of assumptions about what you know about other people, their situations, what you know about this area of study, and what the solutions are. This is the actual issue that seems to make this light v dark mode discussion more difficult that it needs to be.
What has been properly studied in this area is pretty thin as most areas of scientific inquiry go. So there really isn't much anyone can claim to know here with the levels of certainty you seem to express.
Aside from that, you're being pretty aggressive about giving out unasked advice to people you don't know, whose situations you don't know.
If you can't understand why someone like myself can read and understand everything you just said and none the less enjoy dark mode; if it bothers you that people claim dark mode benefits them in spite of your certainty that they are mistaken and this is just a matter of having the right information, then you might try accepting that people are different, start asking more questions, and dial down the unasked advice. You might happier and more pleasant company for it.
Not everyone needs to be the same for you to be okay with the situation. You don't need to fix people. If anything you just need to understand more.
"Dark mode" and "blue light" and so on remember me also of vertical mice to avoid strain in the "mouse hand". It is not the orientation of the mouse which hurts, it is holding that thing for hours. Solutions? Vary. Mostly using the keyboard for all appropriate tasks (contrary to typewriters you don't need much force to push a key) and place it in a comfortable distance for you, using a TrackPoint, a digitizer pen and tablet, using a bigger or smaller mouse appropriate for your hand and of course do something other with you're hand.
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.