Surely this isn't a highly subjective topic that is going to result in people hugely advocating for one or the other purely based on their own anecdotes. Right?
Putting the sarcasm aside, my personal experience with dark mode is that I do find it more pleasant in general to work with. However, in a lot of cases it does make reading text more difficult which mostly seems to come down to the wrong contrast ratios being used between the text and background.
Which brings me on a bit of a tangent, I feel like the web in general has gotten less readable. But this is more to do with font choices, line length and a whole host of other things independent of the dark/light mode.
>I feel like the web in general has gotten less readable. But this is more to do with font choices, line length and a whole host of other things independent of the dark/light mode.
A few years ago I unticked the setting in Firefox that said "Allow websites to choose their own fonts instead of the ones above" and never looked back.
It's absolutely fantastic how every site now has the same font of my own choosing, it's so legible and clear. Very occasionally a site breaks because it uses icon fonts or they've made their design absolutely pixel perfect, but that's a trade-off I can deal with.
>Surely this isn't a highly subjective topic that is going to result in people hugely advocating for one or the other purely based on their own anecdotes. Right?
No, it's not. Eye physiology is not a la cart.
Individual preference and placebo effects can be, sure. But whether it's good or bad for your eyes is not subjective. Big Mac combos are "subjective" too when it comes to taste, but not subjective when they are compared to a healthy balanced meal.
It kind of is though. I generally prefer dark mode but when there's enough ambient light, I can deal with light mode just fine.
When I'm in a darker environment, light mode (even at very low brightness) is too bright, to the point where sometimes I can't even look at the screen.
A screen that I can't look at is, by definition, less readable than one that I can.
Putting the sarcasm aside, my personal experience with dark mode is that I do find it more pleasant in general to work with. However, in a lot of cases it does make reading text more difficult which mostly seems to come down to the wrong contrast ratios being used between the text and background.
Which brings me on a bit of a tangent, I feel like the web in general has gotten less readable. But this is more to do with font choices, line length and a whole host of other things independent of the dark/light mode.