Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Dark Mode Good for Your Eyes? (2020)

kevquirk.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 375 posts

Re: Is Dark Mode Good for Your Eyes? (2020)

#101

Post by danielheath »

scythe wrote: post #92
GekkePrutser wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Yes this is also because these days monitor engineers optimize for peak brightness and totally neglect minimum brightness specs. You can get a proper full range of brightness by using a radiology reading monitor. It's going to run you well into the four figures, though.

The "for medical diagnostic use" label generally triples (or more) the price - you can get the same grade monitor for $2000 or so (sold for eg high end photography / videography / magazine production work).

Re: Is Dark Mode Good for Your Eyes? (2020)

#103

Post by jimbobimbo »

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.

Re: Is Dark Mode Good for Your Eyes? (2020)

#104

Post by TacticalCoder »

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.

Re: Is Dark Mode Good for Your Eyes? (2020)

#105

Post by esperent »

jimbobimbo wrote: post #103

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.

> 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?

Re: Is Dark Mode Good for Your Eyes? (2020)

#106

Post by sturmeh »

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.

Re: Is Dark Mode Good for Your Eyes? (2020)

#107

Post by thayne »

taneq wrote: post #83
alpos wrote: post #72

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…

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.

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.

Re: Is Dark Mode Good for Your Eyes? (2020)

#108

Post by cole-k »

walterbell wrote: post #81

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, fixe…

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.

Re: Is Dark Mode Good for Your Eyes? (2020)

#109

Post by christophilus »

iambateman wrote: post #93

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.

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.

Re: Is Dark Mode Good for Your Eyes? (2020)

#110

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

dontlaugh wrote: post #37
steve1977 wrote: post #8

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 r…

I have astigmatism and experience the opposite. Not sure why. Is it because I always wear glasses?

Similarly. Astigmatism, glasses, and dark mode is a lot easier for me.
Post reply on HN