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Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

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Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#231

Post by erikbye »

NoSorryCannot wrote: post #30
Barrin92 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Customize your device for your comfort. I think the better advice is, customize your environment for your comfort. Often the reason why people use dark mode is that they use their devices in badly lit environments . It's not a good idea to stare into a bright monitor in a dark room, and the dark mode is arguably the wrong fix for the problem. Reading in dimly lit rooms is known to cause headaches and eye strain and…

While true, it'd be nice if they could meet in the middle. Laptops and phones autodim but I can't say I've seen this on desktop monitors. I see dark mode (not enough of it though), auto dark mode much more rarely. Lights that autodim are a thing but not common and usually part of the internet of shit. I don't really want to customize things multiple times daily. And if I have to pick, it will be dark, because it's ea…

> Laptops and phones autodim but I can't say I've seen this on desktop monitors.

Modern monitors do have this. Not sure for how many years, but the one I'm currently seated by is 3 years old and has auto dimming.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#234

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

Something touched on in this article, I suffer from a corneal condition that makes dark mode unusable for me. I have no trouble reading black text on white but trying to read white text on black is impossible.

I kind of got a little frustrated by the whole buzz around dark mode interfaces knowing that I wouldn't get any benefit out of it. I'm also annoyed by Steam (and others) for not providing a native light mode - it really is an accessibility issue for some of us.

I hope the hype around dark mode won't lead to neglect or worse a complete absence (steam) of a light mode.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#235

Post by erikbye »

rdiddly wrote: post #158

Kind of the epitome of bike-sheddding. Way too much importance attached to this on both sides. Want to do something good for your eyes and battery? Turn off the computer and go get an outdoor job like forestry. Yeah I didn't think so. So in that case, my expert advice is for you to use whatever mode you like, and don't worry about what's best. Not everything can, needs to be, or even should be, optimized.

> Not everything can, needs to be, or even should be, optimized.

Anything you do for thousands of hours yearly should definitely be optimized.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#237

Post by Angostura »

As someone who worked in the greenscreen era, I’ve always found the obsession with dark mode a bit weird.

It’s jolly handy if you want to use your screen at night without waking the wife. Other than that, I don’t find much to recommend it.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#238

Post by skywhopper »

coldtea wrote: post #230
squarefoot wrote: post #85

"Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?" Yes, it is. One thing is reading a newspaper in which text amounts to a good percentage of the available area, and the rest reflects ambient light, and a whole different thing is a screen with some text in the middle and the free area emitting white light right to my eyes, de facto saturating them. I would never read a white text on black paper newspaper, neither in the dark nor in th…

> Yes, it is. One thing is reading a newspaper in which text amounts to a good percentage of the available area, and the rest reflects ambient light, and a whole different thing is a screen with some text in the middle and the free area emitting white light right to my eyes, de facto saturating them. Photos are still photons. You can adjust the brightness of the monitor to be the same of a newspaper that reflects you…

But, you often can’t turn down the brightness that much. And anyway the contrast of monitors is many times worse than the contrast of a printed newspaper. Photons are photons, but a screen sends very different pattern of photons to your eyes than a newspaper.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#239

Post by rsp1984 »

I get pretty bad "burn-in" effects after reading text in dark mode and then looking away from the screen or at a light-mode site. The lines of texts then form a stripe pattern that's overlaid on everything that I see. Lasts about 1-2 minutes. Needless to say, I avoid dark mode in my job and I loathe websites that force it on me.

The effect is worse the higher the contrast between dark background and bright text and the longer I've been reading. Anyone else have this problem?

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#240

Post by koheripbal »

coldtea wrote: post #230
squarefoot wrote: post #85

"Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?" Yes, it is. One thing is reading a newspaper in which text amounts to a good percentage of the available area, and the rest reflects ambient light, and a whole different thing is a screen with some text in the middle and the free area emitting white light right to my eyes, de facto saturating them. I would never read a white text on black paper newspaper, neither in the dark nor in th…

> Yes, it is. One thing is reading a newspaper in which text amounts to a good percentage of the available area, and the rest reflects ambient light, and a whole different thing is a screen with some text in the middle and the free area emitting white light right to my eyes, de facto saturating them. Photos are still photons. You can adjust the brightness of the monitor to be the same of a newspaper that reflects you…

Every night? Progressively as it gets darker? Manually? Plus, I'd need to re-adjust the contrast as well.

I'm sure there's software that does that, but Dark mode seems like the easy-no-extra-work solution to this problem.

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