A lot of people actually prefer reading black text on white background because paper works like that. Personally I do too. For writing prose and reading articles or blogs I prefer a light (but not pure white) background and black text. If you want the same legibility with white on black text you need to make the text bolder but this is rarely done.
For coding I always use light text on dark background because dark background makes the syntax coloring more useful as more colors are available.
Re:Do You Really Need Dark Mode?
by jrootabega on Monday June 17, 2019 @05:41AM
(#20201284)
All good and impartial points. Another is that dark background and light text leads to distracting retinal afterimages. But it can be mitigated by understating the contrast: making the black dark gray and the colors muted
I've always been accustomed to black text on white. If I switch to black background, the text is blurry and I either need to put on my glasses or physically move my face closer to the screen. In regular life, all lights at nighttime have huge 'auras' or glows, this is kind of what happens with dark modes as well.
Re:Do You Really Need Dark Mode?
by mindslight on Monday June 17, 2019 @11:53AM
(#20204202)
But this is not how paper works! Paper reflects existing light, and thus automatically matches the general brightness/whitepoint of the ambient illumination. Whereas a monitor is often the brightest thing in your field of view. If laptops with epaper displays ever become a thing, programmers will likely prefer those black-on-white.
If someone earnestly prefers bright backgrounds, I'm not going to say they're wrong. But it feels like much of the "preference" here is due to deprecating dark backgrounds as "weird" plus then pure momentum, and articles like this one don't help.
For programming, it's not about how well you can perceive text, but about keeping your brain from entering the "I'm outside, let's perform physical activity" mode. Similarly, everyone wants to avoid this mode at night (eg Redshift).
Even visual art apps, which benefit from a well-defined whitepoint, default to a neutral grey rather than blinding white. If you enjoy flooding your eyes with light, you can always mount a spot light or even a strobe light above your monitor.