Funny, I am sitting here in a dark nordic country, turned off my lights to vacuum about 15 minutes ago, with the dyson laser lol. I open HN and the first thing I see after my eyes adjust to the flashbang is this link at the very top of the page. :D
Agree. For me it only works for IDEs and code editing, and even there with a carefully calibrated colour scheme and a (not too dark) grey background. Otherwise, it's like reading neon lights in the night. Anyway, as someone pointed out, our vision evolved to see dark signs against a lighter background, not to see light in the darkness.
Without taking an extreme or absolutist stance on this issue, I generally agree with the author here. Dark mode should be reserved for after sunset and before sunrise.
The eyes are adapted to see daylight levels of light during daytime. If your ambient lighting and screen don't match this, then you're not using your body in the way it's evolved to function. What we need more of are screens with anti-glare and a wide range of brightness levels.
What might have a worse impact on your eyesight is the effects of Myopia, which is being exacerbated by basically every portable device with a screen. Anyone who has the technological literacy to enable dark mode (and advocate for it) is likely someone who gets above-average screen time and is therefore someone at a higher risk of myopia.
I don't disagree with most of your message, but it seems lack of sunlight is as much (or more) to blame. You can use dark mode AND go outside as much as possible. The blue light emitted by a screen is no substitute for the ball of fusion in the sky.
I kind of wish white showed up as that manila bookish paper color. I think my eyes read that better than white. But I dont mind dark mode either. I wouldn't never say its mandatory though
At least before you are grown up - that’s absolutely proven truth.
Until you are an adult - you must get outside light (even if it’s overcast winter). On average - luminosity (I hope that’s the term) outside is orders of magnitude above indoors, even when it’s overcast.
Kids without enough light have much bigger risk of shortsightedness. Because eyeball development is related to light.
There was even an article about this on HN couple weeks ago.
Yeah, dark mode is really worse for the eyes almost everywhere. I make an exception for terminals.
I tried many times to like it. When I used to have web conferences with my dev team, I'd have everyone use a light theme for their IDEs when I wanted to read code on their machines, because the clarity was so much better than with the dark themes.
I've started using a sepia tone filter for my phone screen which solves this nicely for bright websites. It's in the accessibility settings and actually it's 25% opacity orange but really improves everything. Even dark mode websites look nice with it. It just evens everything out a bit and gives it a warm feel.
Anyway, point is, the onus is on the author of this rant to adapt to his circumstances. Not to expect everyone to change everything for him.
What bothers me is when you copy something from dark mode, and then paste it somewhere normal and you see unreadable background-styled text ■■■■■■■■■■■■■.
I occasionally get requests from readers to add a dark mode to my blog - https://simonwillison.net/ - and I'm never sure how much priority I should give those, as someone who almost never chooses to use dark mode.
Dark mode fans: does it really bother you to read white web pages?
> Fix your lighting instead of bullying the rest of the Internet into eyesight-damaging practices.
Is there actually any evidence to support this claim? As far as I know, bright screen and dim room usually leads to eye fatigue and eye strain, but these are temporary issues. As far as I understood, any claims that computer work leads to long term vision problems are largely unfounded. Am I missing something here?
Even though most[1] 'Dark Modes' don't work for me (in the sense that everything just turns into a muddy blur and I can't make sense of anything anymore at all), I do realize that's entirely a personal thing, and I do make a point of respecting the user's preference in the apps and sites that I ship. Small price to pay for being neighborly, and a lot less passive-aggressive than "didn't anyone explain to you how to turn down your display brightness?"
[1] With the exception of that weird Windows 11 theme option that keeps the main window content 'light' yet turns most OS affordances 'dark' -- that one is oddly pleasing...
I purposely switch to light mode for screenshots just to troll. And like a same person (not saying I am one just cosplaying) I adjust my windows to the ambient conditions.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 59.8 ms ] threadThe eyes are adapted to see daylight levels of light during daytime. If your ambient lighting and screen don't match this, then you're not using your body in the way it's evolved to function. What we need more of are screens with anti-glare and a wide range of brightness levels.
What might have a worse impact on your eyesight is the effects of Myopia, which is being exacerbated by basically every portable device with a screen. Anyone who has the technological literacy to enable dark mode (and advocate for it) is likely someone who gets above-average screen time and is therefore someone at a higher risk of myopia.
it is a myth that dim lighting negatively impacts eyesight long term.
Until you are an adult - you must get outside light (even if it’s overcast winter). On average - luminosity (I hope that’s the term) outside is orders of magnitude above indoors, even when it’s overcast.
Kids without enough light have much bigger risk of shortsightedness. Because eyeball development is related to light.
There was even an article about this on HN couple weeks ago.
Unless I want to emulate a Solaris console, which has a lovely font.
I tried many times to like it. When I used to have web conferences with my dev team, I'd have everyone use a light theme for their IDEs when I wanted to read code on their machines, because the clarity was so much better than with the dark themes.
Anyway, point is, the onus is on the author of this rant to adapt to his circumstances. Not to expect everyone to change everything for him.
Dark mode fans: does it really bother you to read white web pages?
Is there actually any evidence to support this claim? As far as I know, bright screen and dim room usually leads to eye fatigue and eye strain, but these are temporary issues. As far as I understood, any claims that computer work leads to long term vision problems are largely unfounded. Am I missing something here?
[1] With the exception of that weird Windows 11 theme option that keeps the main window content 'light' yet turns most OS affordances 'dark' -- that one is oddly pleasing...