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Is Dark Mode Good for Your Eyes? (2020)

kevquirk.com

311–320 of 375 posts

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

#311
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…

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 ou…

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.

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

#312
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eye…

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.

No argument there, after all, you showed up.

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

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wer…

> 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…

Fair enough! I do agree that it’s important to back up any concrete biological claims related to eyesight or other long-term effects. But I’m moreso trying to argue that beyond specific claims about legibility or eye strain, it’s quite easy to understand that dark schemes are less blinding and therefore more comfortable for anyone sensitive to bright light.

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

#314
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anecdotal%20evide...

Do you put your hand over fire or you need a study to confirm that fire will burn you?

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

#315
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had this issue. I have 5 1350 lumen bulbs in my office, but they are all 80 on the Color Rendering Index, and it's somehow bright and dull in here simultaneously. I think the sandblasted white chandelier covers make it worse as well.

CRI80 bulbs just grate on me. Even some of the ones rated 90 I find a little annoying (which I've occasionally had to settle for for e.g. downlights in a particular depth). And some of mine that I've bought that are rated 95+, I'm skeptical of. I'm too pedantic / OCD-ish to deal with the colors being so off. If you're the sort of person that's bugged by that sort of thing, just bite the bullet and get the better bulb…

Thank you, I will do that. Do you have a preferred brand/model for the high cri. shopping for bulbs is nearly as annoying as shopping for pc monitors.

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

#316
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Viewers may also be in environments with low ambient light, where staring into a white light is painful. > Video/image compression tends to result in poorer output for lower contrast content Contrast and dark mode are two separate…

> Viewers may also be in environments with low ambient light, where staring into a white light is painful. I find that turning my phone/laptop/monitor brightness down as needed solves that problem. Conversely, however, I often find myself trying to turn my phone brightness up when it is already at maximum, and sadly I still can't see the content (because the ambient light is too strong). There is a reason Google Maps…

> I find that turning my phone/laptop/monitor brightness down as needed solves that problem.

Turning down brightness this much makes the content less readable, especially when it's low-contrast.

> There is a reason Google Maps switches between light and dark mode based on ambient light sensor. I challenge anyone to use maps in dark mode on a sunny day; there is no device bright enough to make dark mode content visible outside

I'm pretty sure I always use Google Maps in dark mode.

> It would also be absurd to burn so much energy trying to make thin colored lines and text be as bright as the opposite - dark lines on light background.

On AMOLED screens, dark mode saves energy.

> Probably because viewing the highest contrast dark mode color schemes is more painful than switching to light mode and dimming the monitor.

Not for me.

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

#317
post #275
post #237

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…

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…

IntelliJ's "darcula" theme is the only dark mode I like cause it's a nice light grey rather than black.

Unfortunately with their recent redesign, the new default dark theme has joined the rest of the crowd with being way too dark, but thankfully darcula is still an option in settings.

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

#318
post #237

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…

I think the issue is that people are adjusting what they see on screen instead of adjusting their environment (i.e. room lighting), even when they are totally able to do it.

A dark mode could make it bearable to work in poor light conditions but won't improve on the fact that it's already a non-optimal environment.

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

#319
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 skill…

Surely the theory is not about sitting at the fire, but about being able to quickly transition between fire and darkness.

But it might also be just a quirk of evolution, or have a completely different reason.

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

#320
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CRI80 bulbs just grate on me. Even some of the ones rated 90 I find a little annoying (which I've occasionally had to settle for for e.g. downlights in a particular depth). And some of mine that I've bought that are rated 95+, I'm skeptical of. I'm too pedantic / OCD-ish to deal with the colors being so off. If you're the sort of person that's bugged by that sort of thing, just bite the bullet and get the better bulb…

Thank you, I will do that. Do you have a preferred brand/model for the high cri. shopping for bulbs is nearly as annoying as shopping for pc monitors.

Depends on the format and your location. If you're in Europe, and mention the size of the bulbs then I sometimes have preferences. Unfortunately, some of my go-to bulbs here are no longer in production. (Honestly, I have the feeling that high CRI bulbs are getting harder to find.)

I find high CRI bulbs hard enough to shop for that I've half-debated starting an online shop for them specifically.

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