Re: What Is The Point Of Dark Mode?

Lawrence D'Oliveiro:

I don't know why everybody is embracing "Dark Mode"
display settings these days

/embrace/ is a terrible manipulative term here, straight
form the ugly corporate slang.

The "easier on the eyes" excuse is nonsense.

It is not an excuse, but a genuine reason (at least with
me).  You accuse of lying all the many peole using dark mode
to relief eye strain simply because you cannot sympathise
with them.  You should not mind-read, or make claims about
the opponent's reasons without good evidence.

I say this as someone whose computing career began with
CRT terminals that displayed light text (or, if you were
lucky, graphics) against a dark background.  As soon as
the display technology allowed for dark text on a light
background, a lot of us made the switch,

I should not expect Unicode punctuation on Usenet from
someone with your backgroind.  As far as I remember, those
old terminals had ugly, eye-burning colors that kill one's
eyes.

for the same reason that printed paper usually has dark
text on a light background, and not the other way round:
because it's easier on the eyes.

The primary reason with paper is the economy of ink.

Because, you see, to make light text on a dark background
easier to read, people tend to turn up the brightness.

I have no such experience, either first- or second-hand,
Instead, I choose a dark scheme with a moderate contrast,
that is a soft dark background (not stark black) and a
somewhat subdued foreground (not stark white).

And this greater brightness tends to tire out the eyes
sooner. With a large, light background, things remain
comfortably readable at lower display intensities.

You overlook the key difference between paper and display.
Whereas the former is not a light source itself, but
reflects external illumination in a pleasant, diffuse manner
consistent with the illimunation of the environment, the
latter is emits harsh, unwholesome light with a high blue
component direct into one's eye.  This is why monitors are
much more contrasty than paper with print.

The human eye is designed (or has evolved, if you will) to
perceive diffuse and relatively low-contrast light, with no
harsh blue component, so it is only natural that dark mode,
when done right, is more comfortable and wholesom, for it
drastically decreases the amount of light emitted by the
display, while keeping the necessary contrast.

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