20 jul What is Dark Mode?
In the latest release of mindburp we added a Dark theme 😎
What is this? And why does so many people use it?
Dark theme can also be known as Black mode, Dark mode, Night mode etc.
The idea behind dark mode is that it reduces the light emitted by the screen while maintaining the minimum colour contrast ratios required for readability.
It’s easy to think that dark mode is a new thing. But if you go back to 70’s & 80’s, “dark mode” was the only mode. Home computers used monochrome CRT monitors, which displayed green text on a black screen.
Then the word processing machines from companies like Xerox came along and they had a white screen with black text (to mimic text on paper).
The black text on white background was the standard for several decades until somewhere around mid 10’s when pretty much all big companies introduced dark mode on their devices and applications.
Why would you want use dark mode?
Energy consumption
The most commonly known advantage of dark mode is that it reduces energy consumption on devices with OLED or AMOLED displays. Without going into the details, LCDs don’t benefit from it in the same way.
That said, dark mode won’t make a huge difference on your energy consumption. A recent study* found that switching to dark mode on a screen using low to mid brightness yielded 3-9% savings. This percentage is so low that you probably wouldn’t notice much difference. If you have your screen set on a higher brighness, the energy savings would be a bit higher.
It may be better for your eyes
You have probably heard of blue light and how excessive exposure to it may have side effects.
Blue light waves are emitted from our screen devices, but primarily it comes from the sun (and colours our sky blue 💙). The blue waves have more energy than other colors of light and send our brains the signal that it’s daytime.
So, at least in theory, blue light from our screens can suppress melatonin, the hormone that signals your body that it’s time to go to sleep.
Dark mode is intended to reduce blue light exposure and also help with eye strain that comes with prolonged screen time.
Many people find dark mode easier to read, especially when you’re in a room with the lights off.
As the research into dark mode’s effects is far from conclusive, the best thing you can do is using the mode that you prefer.
Try mindburp’s Dark theme and see how you like it, if you prefer the Original Theme you can easily switch back. 😇
