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 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?
Female, born before 1980, prefer dark mode, no wallpaper.
I find that most apple users i know use light and android users tend to use dark. Apple users care less about customisation maybe? I was excited to finally get widgets on my work iPad. I told several apple friends about it and they just looked at me blankly.
Apple devices blend in very well with the environment. They adjust display brightness to the brightness of the environment, and with good precision.
For android I have seen only a few devices that even try to do that. Same for non Apple laptops.
No, I’m 49 and male. I only use light mode if I’m in bright sunlight.
Gen X woman here, I started using dark mode a couple of years ago when I was really suffering from Long Covid, and using any kind of screen was a trigger for fatigue so bad I’d need to go lie down and sleep before I collapsed. I read up on managing screen work with fatigue conditions, and dark mode was suggested. As soon as I tried it it was like loads of noise went quiet in my brain, and it just felt calmer. I also suspect I may be autistic and / or ADHD and this may also be a factor. I have to have everything on dark mode now, light mode just feels so shouty and loud.
Yes
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!
Millennial woman here. Dark mode all day every day, but I’m also able to keep my office fairly dim. Unfortunately the main program I use for work doesn’t have a dark mode option.
The battery thing is not true most of the time and the rest is subjective.
What’s to say either dark or light is better in all cases all of the time?
Depends on if the display is OLED, right?
Kind of. An LCD display has one backlight which illuminates the entire screen with one brightness. So a black screen and a white screen will use the same amount of electricity if both screens are set to the same brightness, even though to us a white screen looks brighter. Using a dark theme won’t save any electricity, but it won’t use any more either.
Other display types use self illuminating pixels. Like OLEDs and plasma screens. So a screen which is mostly black uses a lot less electricity than a screen which is mostly any other color but black. Using a dark theme would use substantially less electricity.
Even a CRT would use less electricity if you switch to dark theme while still using one, because the cathode ray wouldn’t have to light up the black pixels.
Makes a lot of sense, thanks
My (possibly mistaken) understanding is that the vast majority of phones are AMOLED which does not have per pixel illumination. AMOLED is still considered superior because of physical thinness, efficiency, refresh rate, et cetera.
A lower contrast light theme is better for your eyes in brightly lit spaces. Lower contrast dark theme for dark or dim spaces.
Light theme for the outside boys that touch grass.
Most comes down to contrast to background.
In daylight and with good displays, light theme is much easier on my eyes than dark theme.
At night, it depends whether the screen can be tuned down enough to fit into the environment, then it doesn’t make much difference.
If dark theme works for you in your setup, enjoy.
For me both must coexist. The time light allows me to be able to see the development environment and the elements in situations when there is a lot of light (even if the monitor is anti-glare the light theme is better), while when the light decreases the dark theme does not “shoot a blinding light”.
Basically, light or dark? both.
I like my phone to look nice and bright, dark mode just make it look so gloomy and makes me feel depressed.
Edit: Also, normally when you read on paper, its a white sheet and black text, reversing the colors just make it… odd.
Completely agree! Dark mode feels depressing. I actively avoid apps that don’t have a light theme.
This
I don’t know where you’re “getting easier on the eyes”. Light mode makes me feel so much more relaxed
so does dark mode feels opposite for you?
Dark theme in low light, light theme in bright light.
Unless I can dim and darken the environment, sometimes light is just more legible. I switch to dark as soon as I can, but I don’t turn it into a religion (I used to)
If the dark theme is a black background with white text, it hurts my eyes. Dark grey like Lemmy or Gnome works great and is generally my preference.
I like dark themes, but not black themes. Give me a dark grey, dark blue/navy, dark purple, but black screen and white text is way too aggressive on the eyes.
Also, what happened that we only really get a “dark or light” theme these days if we beg the Tech overlords?
Back in the olden days of Windows 3.1, 95, etc, we could them the shit balls out of our computers. Suddenly 10000 years later, we have to beg Apple or some developer to give us pre-made themes? Sad.
I’m just annoyed about the lack of consistency in what products do and do not support a dark mode, especially when other products in the same suite do.
I’m limited to using MS Office at work and love that Word, Outlook, OneNote and Drive all have dark themes and a quick toggle button to check accessibility/accommodate light-lovers if I’m screen sharing… But why was Excel left out ☹️? And a bunch of other apps, like Planner and Forms.
not a huge fan of dark mode on Office, something about the white background of the a spreadsheet or word doc contrasting on the dark ribbon and menus and stuff - too harsh for me.
It’s not even that. Applications should ask the desktop environment to present information, and not need to know about your colour choices. There’s no reason to have separate “modes” in different applications.
Give me Hot Dog Stand or give me death!
Dark theme is hell on astigmatisms; the letters just bleed everywhere and I get wicked eye strain.
I like the transition depending on sunlight. Both light mode and dark mode look great to me.
Dark themes are not as readable for me.
You just need to use them for a few weeks to get used. Then you won’t be able to go back.
personally i don’t want to have stinging pain in my eyes for weeks in case it might just go away after that
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.
