What’s the deal with night mode?
Posted On 21 February 2023
At the risk of sounding like a Jerry Seinfeld bit, what is the deal with night mode? I was in a meeting today where somebody touted night mode in a tool as a Really Good Thing™ and I’m perplexed.
I’m not perplexed about what night mode (or dark mode) is. I might be a bit dense, but not quite that dense.
I’ve experimented with tons of themes, etc., over the years on Linux desktop environments. Mostly I tend to drift back to light themes because the dark ones feel a bit oppressive.
What perplexes me is that the mode is so popular it rates product announcements and has so many zealous proponents. What am I missing?
3 Comments
I don’t think it is the best thing ever, but I expect it may be a ‘neuro’ response set or a physical eye issue for some people. I have found as I get older a tendency to get eye headaches from having to read black text on white backgrounds for extended times. I had also found that reading books had become harder if I had spent a day looking at black text on white screens all day. Changing eye glass prescriptions had not helped this any.
However, reversing the text colors on the computer screen so that it is white text on black backgrounds has removed those headaches. I also found I could read books again in the evening after a day on the computer. That said, I also know it isn’t a cure-all for everyone. Some people get similar sounding headaches from darkmode so my untested hypothesis is that it is a eyeball or neuro-brain issue.
This might be relevant: https://www.sevarg.net/2023/02/11/how-your-leds-are-killing-you/
I think this might have something to do with oled displays. When black pixels are actually black, white text on a dark background really is easier on the eyes in a dark room that it used to be