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This seems very unnatural. Step outside on a sunny day and tell me we're not built (as a species) to function optimally in bright light.

I'd even go so far as to say that several hundred thousand years of evolution would back me up. Otherwise, why can't we see perfectly in the dark?

EDIT: typo.

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We aren't equipped to see perfectly in light or dark, we have a range. Everyday is sunny here and people wear sunglasses. I'm not disagreeing with you though - I think the difference is that monitors are backlit and things in nature that create light you tend to not look directly at for 8 hours a day.

It's not so much that most of our field of vision should be light or dark as that we have a bias for light=detail/important, dark=background/unimportant.

This has a slightly perverse effect when a computer monitor is placed in a real environment; looking around my environment (sitting in my cubicle at work) my laptop draws my attention like little else because it's so damn bright.

Maybe websites bias towards light backgrounds because it discourages users from getting up and doing something other than browsing.

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