I switched to light mode and I haven't been happier

I felt tired in the past few days. Much of it comes from the combination of work and parenting, sprinkled with the general depression of the outside world. But I also realized I am staring at various screens for most of the day. And all of those screens had one thing in common - dark mode.

My main personal workstation was set to dark mode by default. And so most of the apps followed suit. Which means that most of the web apps did too.

My two phones were both set to dark mode. The company issued iPhone and my own Pixel. So was my company notebook with Windows.

Everything was dark.

I have switched to dark mode years ago, because I have been told it is better. I don’t know why I have been told it was better. Apparently it was supposed to be less straining on the eyes. Which I learned now, is not true. I will say, that in the case of a smartphone dark mode helps with battery, especially with OLED screens, but even so, the benefit is minimal in this day and age.

Around a week ago, when it was too late to be up, my eyes were literally crying for help. I spend most of my time reading from screens. The moment I switched to white background and black text, my eyes sighed with relief.

I continued my reading routine and only slowly it dawned on me - light mode is better for me.

So I started to switch everything to light. Even kitty. Yes, a terminal works the same with a light theme. No issues there.

Since the switch, my eyes are less tired, my head aches less, and my experience with the various user interfaces is better. Somehow I perceive more contrast this way. Suddenly the bases table in Obsidian is more legible. Outlook on my work laptop is easier to navigate. Discord doesn’t look like the blackhole of the internet anymore.

Working in the dark is not a problem anymore. I do have ambient light around me, because I hated staring at a screen in pitch darkness since I was a child. My grandparents used to watch TV like that. Turn off all the lights in the living room, and the only source of light was the old TV screen, sucking my eyeballs out of their sockets from 2 meters away. Now, I switched the good old “night light” back on on all my devices. I adjusted the screens to proper white balance.

I don’t miss dark mode one bit anymore. It’s as if suddenly somebody unlocked the true look of the world around me. Not everything needs to be dark. My blog never used a dark theme. Somehow I understood, that reading black on white is the natural way. And if somebody needs dark mode, use your browser’s reading mode. All of them can switch to dark mode if you need to.