From: ldo@nz.invalid   
      
   I don’t know why everybody is embracing “Dark Mode” display settings   
   these days. Some say it’s for power saving, others say it’s easier on   
   the eyes. The only reason I’ve heard that makes sense is graphic   
   artists doing colour work use it (together with appropriately set-up   
   ambient lighting--important!) to get a more consistent viewing   
   environment, crucial for ensuring those colours come out correct. As   
   far as I’m concerned, everybody else is following a fad.   
      
   The “easier on the eyes” excuse is nonsense. 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, 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.   
      
   Because, you see, to make light text on a dark background easier to   
   read, people tend to turn up the brightness. And this greater   
   brightness tends to tire out the eyes sooner. With a large, light   
   background, things remain comfortably readable at lower display   
   intensities.   
      
   In sum: small areas of text in lighter colour against large areas of   
   darker colour are harder to see than small areas of text in darker   
   colour against large areas of lighter colour, for the same pair of   
   lighter and darker colours. This is just inherent in the way the   
   physics of vision works.   
      
   This study   
      
   may be a small one, but it demonstrates the phenomenon of users   
   turning up the brightness. They didn’t mention the eye-fatigue issue,   
   they were only looking at power saving. So the power-saving excuse   
   doesn’t seem to pan out either; but we know from previous experience   
   that the eye-fatigue issue will still happen.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)