I read books before going to bed and I appreciate iBooks switching to white letters on black background. With brightness all the way down it works well for me.
Back in the day when all we had were monochrome CRT text display terminals with light characters on dark backgrounds, I always preferred amber screens because they were soothing compared with rather painful bright white screens.
Why are dark mode and night shift being conflated in this article? Night shift is the relevant topic. Dark mode is about personal preferences to avoid Apple’s stupidly bright empty white space in the UI, AND about planning to reduce power consumption once devices use individual light-producing pixels (ie: NOT LCD displays).
Unfortunately, all Apple have done is clumsily reverse the colors. It looks more comfortable at night when your eyes are accustomed to lower light levels, but there’s pretty much no design in this and it IS more straining for long term reading for some people (including me, depending on what else I might be doing; but I’d love it around bedtime).
I personally want it for evening use myself, though I also HATE the excessive whitespace in the GUI since iOS 7.
My reading of the study is that Night Shift (warmer colors) is possibly counterproductive to sleep, compared to using cooler colors, whereas Dark Mode might interfere less with sleep by dramatically reducing brightness. The best option would be to stop using devices and dim the lights, but if you must continue, use Dark Mode.
Dark Mode and Night Shift are two separate things. The study argues that the blue light is less harmful and that it's the level of brightness that makes a bigger impact. So, Dark Mode without Night Shift may be better.
svanstrom said: Yes, of course, a published doctor doing research into the facts about situation A, B, C absolutely completely failed to realise that their research was unnecessary as they should have just told people to put down their phones, get a good nights sleep, always wear a warm jacket when it's cold, and don't forget to eat your veggies.
Silly doctors doing actual research into how the brain/body works instead of asking in webforums how one should live a happy life.
Yes, but...
Any study done with mice is essentially meaningless when extrapolated to humans.
Mice / rodent studies are done because they are cheap compared to other models. Regulations require researchers to use the minimum justifiable number of animals in a study protocol, so sample sizes are always suspect. Gene transcription factor binding sites are vastly different even over identical genes between rodents and humans. Also rodents are significantly inbred, and their immune systems are significantly different, and quite sedentary (OK that last part checks out as comparable...).
Large grains of salt, folks, no matter what the study says.
I'm waiting for a study on how much eye strain is incurred when using "dark mode"? Seriously white body text on a black background?
You'll likely be waiting a long time, it's relative. What is strain? At what age? With what type of vision condition? Etc. For me, at night, I find the dimmer levels of a mostly-black screen easier and have zero problems with Dark Mode.
This article totally misunderstands a key difference between "dark mode" and "night shift." Please amend your article as readers will leave with the wrong idea. Dark mode is merely working on contrast, which may assist in reducing eye strain, but it isn't meant to affect sleep. On the other hand, "night shift" and other similar products are designed to gradually reduce the amount of blue light, reaching your eyes, mirroring what happens in nature as the evening wears on, thought, with some supporting research to reduce the stimulating effect that blue light has on the brain.
Yep. Not understanding why AI is conflating these two different modes into the same thing. They aren't.
Mice are colorblind, so the extrapolation to humans is not straightforward.
Mice have reduced color perception but they do have color perception. Also, gene editing has allowed us to breed mice with human-like color perception. Did the study say if these mice were used or if normal mice were used?
I'm waiting for a study on how much eye strain is incurred when using "dark mode"? Seriously white body text on a black background?
I’ve been reading AI in white text on black background. And I use MS OneNote with black background and varying text colors. In broad daylight, and at night.
For the same reason I like blackboards over whiteboards. Black does not reflect where white does.
I'm waiting for a study on how much eye strain is incurred when using "dark mode"? Seriously white body text on a black background?
I’ve been reading AI in white text on black background. And I use MS OneNote with black background and varying text colors. In broad daylight, and at night.
For the same reason I like blackboards over whiteboards. Black does not reflect where white does.
interesting, can I assume you have younger eyes?
Don't forget that "older eyes" grew up with blackboards rather than whiteboards, so there's also at least a correlation in preferences based on that, methinks.
Then there's a matter of design of the areas they're used in…
Offices used to be these white boxes with everything bright, and boring fluorescent lights; and in such an environment the bright-on-black writing can more easily get lost, especially at a distance. So with better designed offices, with more thought going into colors and lighting, it's easier to use blackboards again. (With my favourite being when they use black walls, and chalkboard paint to make whole walls the blackboards. So convenient when brainstorming.)
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Unfortunately, all Apple have done is clumsily reverse the colors. It looks more comfortable at night when your eyes are accustomed to lower light levels, but there’s pretty much no design in this and it IS more straining for long term reading for some people (including me, depending on what else I might be doing; but I’d love it around bedtime).
I personally want it for evening use myself, though I also HATE the excessive whitespace in the GUI since iOS 7.
Any study done with mice is essentially meaningless when extrapolated to humans.
Mice / rodent studies are done because they are cheap compared to other models. Regulations require researchers to use the minimum justifiable number of animals in a study protocol, so sample sizes are always suspect. Gene transcription factor binding sites are vastly different even over identical genes between rodents and humans. Also rodents are significantly inbred, and their immune systems are significantly different, and quite sedentary (OK that last part checks out as comparable...).
Large grains of salt, folks, no matter what the study says.
Yep. Not understanding why AI is conflating these two different modes into the same thing. They aren't.
Settings>> Accessibility >> Display & Text Size>> Reduce White Point (then move the slider to the left)
Works great. Doesn't anyone else do this?
Then there's a matter of design of the areas they're used in…
Offices used to be these white boxes with everything bright, and boring fluorescent lights; and in such an environment the bright-on-black writing can more easily get lost, especially at a distance. So with better designed offices, with more thought going into colors and lighting, it's easier to use blackboards again. (With my favourite being when they use black walls, and chalkboard paint to make whole walls the blackboards. So convenient when brainstorming.)