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Comment by dnr | Hacker News Reader

These articles are so bizarre to me: he's writing about dark mode and light mode as if you can just... _choose_ one or the other and be roughly equally happy either way? I would never even think to look at "studies" when it's blindingly obvious: light mode makes my eyes hurt a lot, dark mode is very comfortable.

The only time I can even consider using light mode is mid-day with plenty of natural light around. At night when all the lights are dim, even the lowest brightness on my laptop (which is quite low), plus redshift, plus blue-blocking glasses, isn't enough to be comfortable in light mode. I use the "Deluminate" extension for Chrome to make all sites dark, all the time.

Perhaps I'm unusually sensitive to light (I think I am), but based on the comments here I think I'm far from alone.

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I think this disclaimer at the bottom might explain some of it:

> This post is day 04 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to get involved, you can get more info from https://100daystooffload.com.

I find that the intent behind publishing any piece of content is an incredibly accurate predictor for its usefulness in my experience. When you can ascertain that of course. But essentially, my rule of thumb is that if the chain of events looks like this:

1. I really want to write a blog post

2. What should it be about?

then I won't find much useful in it, regardless of the topic. But if it's the other way around:

1. I really want to share this idea of mine

2. What medium should I use to deliver it?

then I often find it useful to me, again regardless of the topic.

Funnily enough, the title of the author's next blog post in this series captures this idea well: "Writing With SEO In Mind"

I wish this was the top comment; it would save us a lot of debate :).

Crank down the brightness on your monitor a good bit (more than you think you should), switch to light mode and stay there for the day. The initial dark-light switch is super jarring, I find, but light mode proper is actually fine.

And it's far easier to tolerate an instance of dark mode in a lighter-themed environment than the reverse because the initial switch is so much more jarring than light->dark (which can also be jarring, but it's not as jarring)

I really just don't understand this pushback. I posted a comment about eye strain. I've been using computers for almost 30 years. Do you really think I haven't tried turning down the brightness? Is it that hard to believe that there are people out there that sincerely, legitimately, prefer light-on-dark text (possibly due to physiological differences in the eyes or brain)? Why this need to "correct" people? Just let people do what works for them!

(If you meant your comment to be "I found this works for me: ..." or "Have you tried ...?", then write it that way. The imperative mood is off-putting.)

FWIW: On my laptop, which I use most of the time these days, I adjust the brightness continually, probably 20+ times a day, and keep it pretty low. (I buy Thinkpads partly because their minimum brightness is so low.) On my desktop monitor, which is more annoying to adjust, I actually keep it at 0 most of the time, and bump it to 35 when the sun is out.

Probably because dark mode has been shoved over us through an aggresive bro culture not unlike MongoDB at the time.

That's probably why people want to be vocal about it (not as much as said bro culture still)

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