Saves your battery. Easy on eyes. Dark theme is just nicer, what am I missing?
Pretty much anytime I have to read some white or light grey text on a dark background it is punishing on my eyes and I end up with light-lines in my vision temporarily after. I’ve given up on entire websites because they only have a dark theme and the simplified read mode doesnt work. On occasion, when I really needed to read a lot of text from somewhere I will copy and paste into a word processor. Light mode, or anything with dark text on light background, doesn’t strain my eyes nearly so much.
Finally someone I can relate to! Every time I said dark themes hurt my eyes all my friends insisted it was the opposite.
I have astigmatism, so dark mode is harder on the eyes when reading text. So, even though I like the aesthetics of dark mode, I need to use light mode to not put so much strain on my eyes.
Really? I have astigmatism and have the opposite experience. Do you know why it’s more strain?
It has to do with halation. White text on a black background is blurrier than black text on a white background. There’s a nice accessibility description here.
saves your battery
Maybe, maybe not. For OLED screens, where the pixels themselves generate the brightness, then an overall darker image will save power. For LCD screens with backlights it’s the opposite: the backlight is always on and the lowest power state of an individual pixel is to let the light pass through unmodified - the part that costs power is turning the pixel 9n so that it blocks the light to make a black dot. So, your statement isn’t true for all (or even most) devices.
Next: I find bright text on a black background to be hardest and most jarring to my vision. Humans have been reading black text on a light medium for millennia; it is natural. Light mode, for me, is easier to read and least tedious for my eyeballs.
I also just think that a light mode look is more polished looking…cleaner.
When I read text in dark mode and look away I can still see an image of the text in my vision for several seconds. I don’t know if that’s bad or not but it keeps me in light mode most of the time.
Light themes are great, I think most people who hate them have their brightness set too high on their devices.
Light theme for bright environment, dark theme for dark. Works great.
I get the impression that the preference for dark mode tends to be more common in Millennial/Gen-Z men.
As an older Gen-X, I cannot stand having dark mode on during the day or light mode at night. I use auto whenever it is available. I don’t know why!
My daughter and her female friends do not have dark mode during the day. My younger coworkers often have dark mode at work, but only the male ones.
I’m curious about those who use dark mode all the time: were you born after 1980 and male?
1995/m here and I exclusively use dark mode. Preferably white text on a black background (sometimes called LED dark mode). I’m not sure if your generation + gender theory holds but I will say that the games and software I played growing up used a combination of dark and light for UI and menus.
Interesting point, maybe people with more gaming growing up prefer the dark mode. Much of the gaming era came around after my time!
I personally belong to the dark theme cult, but this spring we had to rent a flat for a while where ambient light conditions were just horrible. For the first time in my life I just HAD to use light themes everywhere because dark themes would just make my eyes hurt after a while. So maybe people who prefer light themes just spend most of their time somewhere with dim uneven lights?
I live in Australia, very sunny most of the year. Light theme feels like I’m shining a flashlight into my eyes even during the day. I just don’t understand light theme.
Depends on your device
My 5 year old laptop’s screen is so dim that on bright days you fully can’t see dark mode, but my phone and monitor work just fine on dark mode on all but the brightest days
Dark 'themes’of old were because of flicker on crts. We aren’t using crts now. The contrast of dark themes is anything but easy on the eyes.
My eyes literally burn if I don’t use dark mode
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All of the above. Plus, it’s a little more aesthetic (most times), easier on my eyes since I wear glasses.
Light mode works for some things, but most of the time dark mode is the way to go.
Speaking for my wife, cataracts.
I recently switched to dark theme depending on the time and I would say the reason not to use dark themes entirely is you don’t get the contrasts you can get with light themes, setting the mood and I guess ‘theme’.
What a backwards question. The world is light. Text is normally black or blue on white. There are no good reasons to turn your online experience into a dive into a well of darkness where you have to squint and strain your eyes to see the text.
