I use dark mood all the time in fact the
only time I don't use dark mode is in
the mornings when I weaponize light mood
against myself as a way to truly wake up
but recently dark mood has come to the
spotlight all your favorite apps have it
and if they don't they're getting it
soon and that got me questioning whether
or not it's actually better for you and
spoiler alert it might not be
white mood is the default setting on
most computers but it wasn't always that
way we actually start off in dark mood
early computer technology from the
circuitry to the displays could only
illuminate one color at a time in the
60s and 70s cathode ray tubes used
phosphorous illuminated by electrons to
display text and info the background was
inevitably a default black whatever you
were displaying will be backlit by one
color fast forward to the late 70s and
the debut of the Apple to the Xerox Alto
and many other computers that were the
first to be optimized to produce color
this was revolutionary and companies
quickly moved away from the
monochromatic displays of the past to
the color displays of the future because
color is just better and with color came
the first light modes this is clear from
the menus in the UI but its most obvious
when you look at the shift in the style
of word processing software like
WordPerfect this change is probably due
to steel morphism the idea that we
wanted to make things look like their
real-life counterparts and for word
processing that meant dark text on white
backgrounds since I made the switch to
color displays we've been living in
light mode land and it didn't bother us
as most users weren't on computers all
day but now we're on er computers all
the time Americans spend about seven
hours a day on average looking at their
computer or digital devices the nearly
60 percent of all adults experienced
what they call digital eye strain that
was dr. Sam Pierce and I am the
president of the American Optometric
Association most people including me
have loved darkness because it saves on
battery life and it's claimed by money
to be better for our eyes now the
battery life thing is somewhat obvious
if your phone screen is outputting less
light that means you can turn off huge
chunk of pixels and that means it can
save energy but better for our eyes now
that is a pretty big question to answer
but we can narrow it down pretty easily
with dark mode images and videos stay
the same while backgrounds in text get
inverted from the regular scheme this is
the biggest difference between dark mode
and light consequently dark need reading
is also the feature with the greatest
impact on our eyes
I noticed it because I use dark mood to
read every day at work and while I've
loved it I have recognized some bumps in
the road
I think light mode is far better with
respect to being able to comfortably
read and use digital device for a long
period of time and I think there are
enough studies to back that up and there
are indeed a bunch of studies to back
this up the consensus is that our eyes
are roughly 26% worse at reading when it
comes to dark mood the biggest
scientific factors for this or locust
light scatter and contrast let's use a
camera lens to explain the first one
focusing is largely affected by how much
light is coming into our eyes and how we
focus that light if a lot of light is
coming in like when using light modes
our pupils contract allowing less light
in creating a wide depth of field
meaning everything is in focus if this
is inverted less light coming in that
causes our pupils to dilate and that
creates a shallower plane of focus
meaning our eyes have to put more effort
into focusing on individual objects when
it comes to reading you want everything
to be in focus you need that light
background for the pupil to work
appropriately to minimize metal light
coming in it also increases your depth
of focus the I just works better more
comfortably then there's light
scattering white on black text has a
sort of a halo effect where the light
from each letter casts light around it
making it difficult and more
time-consuming to read this is the
complete opposite of light mode where
the black text fully stands out without
any light spill think about like
TechSmith
just say on my smartphone it's white
letters on either blue or green
backgrounds very easy to look at and
read but I don't look at text messages
for seven hours a day that's an example
of a dark mode feature over a long term
I think the opposite is easier to look
at and more comfortable to look at and
then there's also color contrast the
contrast is I think as important or even
more important than whether or not
you're talking about light from other
verses Dartmouth so even in dark mode
for it to be successful the contrast has
to be great enough that it's not
creating a strain you want a contract
that's like white letters on a dark blue
background notice that dr. Pierce
mentions white text on a dark blue
background
that's because white text on a black
background is considered to have too
much contrast this is one of the
trickier things to design for UX
designers try to combat this by using
slightly lai text or using backgrounds
that aren't believed black though that
last one has caused a lot of backlash
for dark modes aren't dark enough I
think it's important to note here
however that all of this doesn't mean
that dark mode is bad and neither is
light mode necessarily when it comes to
eye strain over a long period of time
these symptoms are not debilitating
they're not permanent they don't cause
permanent long-term damage
they typically fade once you move away
from the activity the long-term effects
of looking at digital devices should be
studied more to see if there is a more
lasting effect and damage but right now
it would be very hard to say that
there's any damage done long-term from
looking at computers dark mode like
everything else is a tool and not every
tool is made for every circumstance we
all just need some time to learn how to
use dark mood better both from a design
perspective and from a user perspective
that might mean using light mode when
reading and then switching to dark mode
when watching YouTube or playing games
or it might mean succumbing to dark mode
that aren't dark enough to save her eyes
from straining when we do want to read
now I'm still forever or no he's going
to be a member of the dark side but I've
definitely learned to appreciate the
positive attributes of light mode
especially when it comes to prolonged
periods of reading and writing if you're
interested in learning more about the
best practices for keeping your eyes
safe and unstrained while browsing the
web check out the American Optometric
Association website they have a great
list of do's and don'ts that I'll cater
to all your purposes
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