Browsing in Dark Mode: Why You Might Need to Turn Off The Light to Save Your Eyesight

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On average, we spend about 11 hours on mobile devices daily. This is according to a study conducted by the Nielsen research group in 2018. After so many hours staring at the white background of almost every webpage and app, you are likely to start experiencing discomfort in the eyes no matter how much you turn down the brightness.

Studies show that the light emitted by computers and cell phones, commonly known as the blue light, is likely to accelerate blindness. Blue light harms your vision by damaging the eye’s photoreceptor cells in the retina. The condition brought on by blue light is now a leading cause of vision problems in the U.S and normally starts at around 55 years.

In addition, spending a lot of time staring at a brightly lit screen comes with other problems including itchy eyes, neck pain, insomnia, and headaches.

If you are an average Internet user, you must have gone through the nasty experiences of being in a room with lights turned down but stuck with a white or blue screen blinding you. The light not only dries out your eyes making them painful, but it also affects your sleep pattern.

You have never thought the time spent staring at the screen is linked to your inability to sleep, right? Well, here is the truth. Your sleep pattern is regulated by a hormone known as melatonin produced by a pea-sized gland in your brain. The hormone is usually secreted at dusk. When you keep staring at a bright screen, the blue light inhibits the secretion of melatonin, making it hard to get sufficient shuteye even when you want. This explains the primary reason why most car dashboards emit blue light: to keep the driver alert and awake.

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To minimize the exposure of the harmful blue light, you can turn down the brightness of your screen by activating dark mode in apps and websites.

While most apps now offer a dark color mode, using websites is a totally different ball game. Normally, color themes are set by the site’s developer. However, you can still make certain color adjustments to make your browsing experience better.

Using dark mode is not only beneficial to your health, but it also prolongs your battery life especially on OLED screens. On OLED and AMOLED panels, individual pixels are lit. This means that when the screen background is white, all pixels are turned on, translating into the device using more power. When pixels are darkened, the display requires less power. At this juncture, it is important to note that only devices with OLED and AMOLED screens save power in dark mode, so phones and laptops with LCD do not benefit from it.

In addition, the dark mode has aesthetic value as it looks amazing compared to the bland white look especially when presenting graphic content such as pictures and graphs.

While the dark mode is great for your eyes, it is not always a good idea especially when you are using the device in the sun or well-lit room. In such circumstances, using dark mode make the content on the darkened background impossible to read.

Ultimately, using dark mode is beneficial for your general well being, conserves energy, and has aesthetic purposes. Therefore, it is probably time you turned down the light on your screen.

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