People who prefer light theme over dark/night theme.. Why?

Pretty much anytime I have to read some white or light grey text on a dark background it is punishing on my eyes and I end up with light-lines in my vision temporarily after. I’ve given up on entire websites because they only have a dark theme and the simplified read mode doesnt work. On occasion, when I really needed to read a lot of text from somewhere I will copy and paste into a word processor. Light mode, or anything with dark text on light background, doesn’t strain my eyes nearly so much.
- Finally someone I can relate to! Every time I said dark themes hurt my eyes all my friends insisted it was the opposite.
- There's addons that can change how the website is colorized.
- Same here. Black text on white background is the best for reading. The only downside is how goddamn bright it is at night in bed. But I should probably sleep at those hours anyway.

I personally belong to the dark theme cult, but this spring we had to rent a flat for a while where ambient light conditions were just horrible. For the first time in my life I just HAD to use light themes everywhere because dark themes would just make my eyes hurt after a while. So maybe people who prefer light themes just spend most of their time somewhere with dim uneven lights?
- I live in Australia, very sunny most of the year. Light theme feels like I'm shining a flashlight into my eyes even during the day. I just don't understand light theme.
  
  Depends on your device
  My 5 year old laptop's screen is so dim that on bright days you fully can't see dark mode, but my phone and monitor work just fine on dark mode on all but the brightest days
  
  for the normies
- This does sound like me. I don't use screens I bright light and prefer dark themes.

Light theme in the day, dark theme at night. Switched automatically by sunset/sunrise time.
- I never understood the cult mentality about it, it's obviously better to automatically switch depending on light conditions around you.

I get the impression that the preference for dark mode tends to be more common in Millennial/Gen-Z men.
As an older Gen-X, I cannot stand having dark mode on during the day or light mode at night. I use auto whenever it is available. I don’t know why!
My daughter and her female friends do not have dark mode during the day. My younger coworkers often have dark mode at work, but only the male ones.
I’m curious about those who use dark mode all the time: were you born after 1980 and male?
- 1995/m here and I exclusively use dark mode. Preferably white text on a black background (sometimes called LED dark mode). I'm not sure if your generation + gender theory holds but I will say that the games and software I played growing up used a combination of dark and light for UI and menus.
  
  Interesting point, maybe people with more gaming growing up prefer the dark mode. Much of the gaming era came around after my time!
- Female, born before 1980, prefer dark mode, no wallpaper.
  I find that most apple users i know use light and android users tend to use dark. Apple users care less about customisation maybe? I was excited to finally get widgets on my work iPad. I told several apple friends about it and they just looked at me blankly.
  
  Apple devices blend in very well with the environment. They adjust display brightness to the brightness of the environment, and with good precision.
  For android I have seen only a few devices that even try to do that. Same for non Apple laptops.
- No, I'm 49 and male. I only use light mode if I'm in bright sunlight.
- Gen X woman here, I started using dark mode a couple of years ago when I was really suffering from Long Covid, and using any kind of screen was a trigger for fatigue so bad I'd need to go lie down and sleep before I collapsed. I read up on managing screen work with fatigue conditions, and dark mode was suggested. As soon as I tried it it was like loads of noise went quiet in my brain, and it just felt calmer. I also suspect I may be autistic and / or ADHD and this may also be a factor. I have to have everything on dark mode now, light mode just feels so shouty and loud.
- Millennial woman here. Dark mode all day every day, but I'm also able to keep my office fairly dim. Unfortunately the main program I use for work doesn't have a dark mode option.
- Yes

Saves battery only on oled, but that’s a valid point. and easier in eyes is highly debatable! I absolutely prefer light theme at bright environments but dark theme at night.

Dark is not easy for all eyes. https://www.androidauthority.com/dark-mode-1046425/

The battery thing is not true most of the time and the rest is subjective.
What's to say either dark or light is better in all cases all of the time?
- Depends on if the display is OLED, right?
  
  Kind of. An LCD display has one backlight which illuminates the entire screen with one brightness. So a black screen and a white screen will use the same amount of electricity if both screens are set to the same brightness, even though to us a white screen looks brighter. Using a dark theme won't save any electricity, but it won't use any more either.
  Other display types use self illuminating pixels. Like OLEDs and plasma screens. So a screen which is mostly black uses a lot less electricity than a screen which is mostly any other color but black. Using a dark theme would use substantially less electricity.
  Even a CRT would use less electricity if you switch to dark theme while still using one, because the cathode ray wouldn't have to light up the black pixels.
  
  My (possibly mistaken) understanding is that the vast majority of phones are AMOLED which does not have per pixel illumination. AMOLED is still considered superior because of physical thinness, efficiency, refresh rate, et cetera.

I have astigmatism, so dark mode is harder on the eyes when reading text. So, even though I like the aesthetics of dark mode, I need to use light mode to not put so much strain on my eyes.
- Really? I have astigmatism and have the opposite experience. Do you know why it's more strain?
  
  It has to do with halation. White text on a black background is blurrier than black text on a white background. There’s a nice accessibility description here.

Battery life is rarely a concern for me; with standard use, not charging all day, my phone is still usually above 30% when I go to plug it in before bed, dark theme is most certainly not easier on my eyes when my surroundings are bright.

I like my phone to look nice and bright, dark mode just make it look so gloomy and makes me feel depressed.
Edit: Also, normally when you read on paper, its a white sheet and black text, reversing the colors just make it... odd.
- Completely agree! Dark mode feels depressing. I actively avoid apps that don't have a light theme.
- This

Most comes down to contrast to background.
In daylight and with good displays, light theme is much easier on my eyes than dark theme.
At night, it depends whether the screen can be tuned down enough to fit into the environment, then it doesn’t make much difference.
If dark theme works for you in your setup, enjoy.

A lower contrast light theme is better for your eyes in brightly lit spaces. Lower contrast dark theme for dark or dim spaces.
- Light theme for the outside boys that touch grass.

I don’t know where you’re “getting easier on the eyes”. Light mode makes me feel so much more relaxed
- so does dark mode feels opposite for you?
  
  Not the first commenter, but yes. If I look away after looking at a dark/black theme post I see the text in my vision. It feels straining to read like that for prolonged periods of time.

If the dark theme is a black background with white text, it hurts my eyes. Dark grey like Lemmy or Gnome works great and is generally my preference.

For me both must coexist. The time light allows me to be able to see the development environment and the elements in situations when there is a lot of light (even if the monitor is anti-glare the light theme is better), while when the light decreases the dark theme does not "shoot a blinding light".
Basically, light or dark? both.

On my phone, it changes to light/dark depending on day/night. For my work computer, it’s only light mode. The ambient light in my office is bright enough that it actually makes it hard to read text in dark mode. Light mode seems easier on my eyes

Dark theme in low light, light theme in bright light.
Unless I can dim and darken the environment, sometimes light is just more legible. I switch to dark as soon as I can, but I don't turn it into a religion (I used to)

Dark theme is hell on astigmatisms; the letters just bleed everywhere and I get wicked eye strain.

I like the transition depending on sunlight. Both light mode and dark mode look great to me.

I like dark themes, but not black themes. Give me a dark grey, dark blue/navy, dark purple, but black screen and white text is way too aggressive on the eyes.
Also, what happened that we only really get a "dark or light" theme these days if we beg the Tech overlords?
Back in the olden days of Windows 3.1, 95, etc, we could them the shit balls out of our computers. Suddenly 10000 years later, we have to beg Apple or some developer to give us pre-made themes? Sad.
- I'm just annoyed about the lack of consistency in what products do and do not support a dark mode, especially when other products in the same suite do.
  I'm limited to using MS Office at work and love that Word, Outlook, OneNote and Drive all have dark themes and a quick toggle button to check accessibility/accommodate light-lovers if I'm screen sharing... But why was Excel left out ☹️? And a bunch of other apps, like Planner and Forms.
  
  not a huge fan of dark mode on Office, something about the white background of the a spreadsheet or word doc contrasting on the dark ribbon and menus and stuff - too harsh for me.
  
  It's not even that. Applications should ask the desktop environment to present information, and not need to know about your colour choices. There's no reason to have separate "modes" in different applications.
- Give me Hot Dog Stand or give me death!

saves your battery
Maybe, maybe not. For OLED screens, where the pixels themselves generate the brightness, then an overall darker image will save power. For LCD screens with backlights it's the opposite: the backlight is always on and the lowest power state of an individual pixel is to let the light pass through unmodified - the part that costs power is turning the pixel 9n so that it blocks the light to make a black dot. So, your statement isn't true for all (or even most) devices.
Next: I find bright text on a black background to be hardest and most jarring to my vision. Humans have been reading black text on a light medium for millennia; it is natural. Light mode, for me, is easier to read and least tedious for my eyeballs.
I also just think that a light mode look is more polished looking...cleaner.

Dark mode is harder on the eyes and harder to read.

Dark 'themes'of old were because of flicker on crts. We aren't using crts now. The contrast of dark themes is anything but easy on the eyes.
- It's easier on my eyes. I wonder if it has anything to do with vision issues. We need a poll to test the correlation of dark theme preference and astigmatism.
  
  It's probably only easier on the eyes with an OLED screen. Anything else and you still get the backlight anyway so the easier on the eyes and battery claims don't apply.
- My eyes literally burn if I don't use dark mode
  
  Have you considered seeing a doctor about that? I'm being serious.
- If it's "AMOLED Dark", I agree. But white on dark gray is pretty much easy on the eyes to me.

When I read text in dark mode and look away I can still see an image of the text in my vision for several seconds. I don't know if that's bad or not but it keeps me in light mode most of the time.

Dark mode at work, light mode at home/on personal devices. No real explanation why.

What a backwards question. The world is light. Text is normally black or blue on white. There are no good reasons to turn your online experience into a dive into a well of darkness where you have to squint and strain your eyes to see the text.

Bright text on dark background hurts my eyes. It's like it burns in on my vision. As another commenter says, it stays before my eyes after I look away Dark text on light background feels natural, like a newspaper or a book. I use warm color temperatures after dark, it's very comfy.

I switched to auto mode after listening to the huberman labs podcast ep on eye health
- What did he say?
  
  been a while since I watched, but from my fuzzy memory people getting less light in their eyes was linked/associated with nearsightedness, and since I work at a computer all day I figured I should try to maximize the light I get in them, so I started taking more walks and switched to auto mode (less light at night is important for sleep).
  Another thing that pushed me to it was Eliezer Yudkowsky made a post about how his wife struggled with seasonal depression and a lightbox didn't help, but he tried increasing the light by setting up a ton of LEDs around their house and it actually worked for her.

Dark themes are not as readable for me.
- You just need to use them for a few weeks to get used. Then you won't be able to go back.
  
  personally i don't want to have stinging pain in my eyes for weeks in case it might just go away after that

Albeit dark themes are more beautiful, in a light environment during daylight, a light background with dark fonts is easier on your eyes.

Speaking for my wife, cataracts.

Some types of application I prefer light, some dark. But the premise is wrong:
Saves your battery
Only if you're using OLED, which most people aren't, and by very little. You could save more battery by using a low-power mode when you don't need all the bells and whistles.
Easy on eyes
Debatable, different for different people.
Dark theme is just nicer
That's not objective, it's personal taste :)
- if you're using OLED, which most people aren't
  That doesn't sound right at all to me. Majority of Internet traffic is on mobile, mobile devices far outnumber desktops, non-OLED phones are pretty rare
- I’d argue light theme saves battery (for non-OLED displays), because then you don’t need to up the brightness so much. It’s the backlight that drains most battery, and if you use dark mode you tend to up the brightness to see anything.

Light themes are great, I think most people who hate them have their brightness set too high on their devices.
Light theme for bright environment, dark theme for dark. Works great.

Dark themes aren't easy on the eyes. It's preferred when you're looking at a screen in a dark room, but you shouldn't be doing that anyway. When I have to look at a dark theme, I find myself squinting and straining my eyes. Light themes just look better too. Better to save your battery by lowering the brightness of your screen.

I just toggle based on time of day / lightness of environment.
I find my eyes are more strained when using light text on dark backgrounds in a light environment (and of course dark text on light backgrounds are a no-go at night). The only exception to this is my phone, where the battery gains from oled makes dark mode the only option for me. I hope Kbin gets a nice light mode toggle that can follow the system theme in the future.

I'm just used to it, I guess. I've never had an eye strain issue with monitors for some reason. I'm resistant to change. Moving to Lemmy from Reddit was a big deal for me, and not just because I had sunk 13 years into Reddit, just the idea of changing something I'm very used to... there was a reason I still used old Reddit.
EDIT: That said, I spent countless hours on my old Apple IIs with their famous green-on-black monitors.

I use both. I always have automatic dark/light mode enabled where possible controlled by sunset/sunrise. If it's light outside I just prefer light mode and when it's dark outside I prefer dark mode. Being in a well lit room it's easier on the eyes to use light theme.
The only time I use dark mode only is for Discord and IDEs.

Because I can't get it consistently. Better to have my eyes adjusted to constant light than be randomly blinded when whatever random site or app isn't dark.
- For this reason, I prefer light theme + inverted colours when it's late. During the day I just use light themes

I primarily use dark themes but I do switch to light themes from time to time. To see better, give my eyes a break, or when in a dark room for too long are some examples. Also some apps just don't play nice in dark themes.

Dark theme gives me a massive headache after just 5-10 minutes and I think it's because the text is fuzzier to me. I'm not sure if it is astigmatism related?
Weird thing is that AMOLED dark on my phone doesn't bother me the same way.
Also colors in dark mode when I'm coding seem to blend together more so I am not as quick at picking up visual cues.

I just find reading on light mode much easier and comfortable, so i use it most of the time. I do use dark mode for programming, it doesn’t bother me there, but for most apps and websites the dark mode feels much more tiring.

I never understood why go dark only? We have a neat feature in almost all the device change depending on the brightness or sunrise, that is the way to go IMHO.
White UI looks nice as well.
- Ow! My eyes 👀😭
  
  Fire up the brightness to 100% and close all windows, I dare you.

Since Thinklight is no longer a thing, how else am I supposed to read my credit card info off the card?

I find it easier on the eyes plus I don't use Oled Screens so I'm thinking "why should I block all this light that my backlight produces anyway just so i have something that looks a little more aesthetic?"

while I would say I belong to the dark-theme cult, there are some applications/websites that I cannot get used to them in dark mode. Like github or slack for example in which everything else than they light theme looks strange in my eyes.

why?
They are Heretics and Miscreants, an Abomination unto GoD who spread their lies about "The Light".

both and as long as not grey text on dark theme

Dark mode just looks bad aesthetically, IMO. Maybe it's something to do with my ADD, but I can't focus for long on apps or pages using dark mode. They're boring to look at.

It depends on content also, when reading books I tend to use light mode with brightness lowered since it makes me easier to read and relaxed?, But for other content I mostly use dark mode

I have photophobia (and photosensitivity!) so dark mode is the only tolerable way to look at things for me.
Since dark mode has become a lot more prevalent/accessibile there's been a notable reduction in headaches/migraines for me, especially in conjunction with 'night light' settings, and an anti-glare glasses coating.

Here to agree. I use dark thème when it gets to night. Shifting automatically for sunrise and sunset, but when reading long strings of text. That’s a no-go, I have to shift into light mode for that exact same reason

Memmy has an option I love. You can chose a any theme for system daytime and a different theme for nighttime. So I chose Dracula for day time and OLED dark at night. The full black OLED theme is too flat for daytime but the dark Dracula is perfect.

Dark mode helps minimizing any eye strain, plus its cool af.

All of the above. Plus, it's a little more aesthetic (most times), easier on my eyes since I wear glasses.
Light mode works for some things, but most of the time dark mode is the way to go.