Dark mode's been depressing me, lately

All the cool cats think it's fly, but it leaves me feeling like I might die. (Y'all know I'm being dramatic by now, right?)

Oh dark mode. How I once professed my love to you.

I painted my whole world in your palette.

You dressed up text and images in screaming color. It was the perfect contrast to your gloomy backdrops. They lit up my sky.

And your piercing white text had me running from the light.

You kept me awake night after night, way past my bedtime. The dark nights really did suit you. Made you look so handsome.

But now, I see your true colors. You’re not who I thought you were. I thought you were my forever. I thought you were on my side.

You have deceived me for the last time…

---

“Come to the dark side…”

“…we have chocolate here,” they said.

I switched to dark mode a few years ago. It felt so sleek, so modern, so mysterious. And I know I’m not alone in my switch!

According to a “study,” over 80% of people use dark mode on their devices. Now, this “study” was actually a poll that Android Authority asked of their readers. It got 2,514 votes in total. And just about every single article I read cited this poll so I couldn’t find a reliable number to go with.

But we can do our own study! It will be just as scientific. Vote below what you use. Do you love the light? Or are you in your reputation era?

While we don’t (and probably can’t) actually know how many people use dark mode, it gets a lot of praise from those who use it.

They say dark mode is better for battery savings, causes less eye strain, creates better text legibility, and that it’s easier for reading in dark rooms.

But does it actually do those things? Or are these pros exaggerated? It turns out, dark mode doesn’t live up to these benefits for everyone.

How much battery life does dark mode actually save?

Whatcha gonna do with all that juice, all that juice inside your phone? I’ma go watch TikToks alone. TikToks alone. TikToks alone.

The energy savings of dark mode is often towards the top of the list when people make the switch, at least in the eco-sphere. But I was starting to question, if that was, in fact, a good reason.

First off, dark mode only provides energy savings for devices with OLED screens, not for those with LCD screens. Most major smart phones now are built with OLED, but there’s still phones out in the wild with LCD displays. You can always look up your model of phone to check for sure which type of display it has!

If your device has an OLED screen, dark mode can provide significant savings if you’re switching from light to dark mode at 100% brightness.

At 100% brightness, switching can save 39-47% of its energy use. Pretty huge, right?

Now, just like trying to find out how many people use dark mode, it’s nearly impossible to know how many people use their phone at the max brightness level. But I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s not very many.

So what if you’re switching to dark mode at a medium to low brightness? You’ll only save about 3-9% of your phone’s energy use. Which is such a tiny amount.

There’s also the caveat that if you switch from light to dark mode, you’ll also most likely be bumping up your brightness. Dark mode at 40% looks a lot different than light mode at 40%. It’s not a straight 1:1 ratio of savings.

Overall, while dark mode technically saves some energy, it’s not much.

The true dark side: its accessibility issues

Just like dark chocolate, dark mode isn’t for everyone.

While it is true that dark mode can be easier to read for some people, it’s not true for all.

For those with astigmatism, it can cause more eye strain, not less. Almost half of the population has astigmatism which causes your eyes to be more egg-shaped than round.

But how does the shape of our eyes affect reading on dark mode?

Adamya Sharma from Android Authority describes it best in an easy-to-understand way:

Black text on a white background makes for the best readability, hence the best comprehension and retention. Why? Because the color white reflects all wavelengths of the visible spectrum. The iris does not need to widen to absorb more light.

Since the iris does not widen when looking at a white screen, the pupil remains narrow, and you need to make less of an effort to focus on things. When you see contrasting black text on a white background, you can focus on it immediately.

In dark mode, your pupil needs to expand to let in more light. When you see light text on a dark screen, its edges seem to bleed into the black background. This is called the halation effect (via Make Tech Easier), and it reduces the ease of reading.

The halation effect can be very subtle, and it doesn’t affect everyone with astigmatism the same way. But if you have astigmatism and are currently using dark mode, I recommend switching away from it and seeing if it makes a difference for you!

Dark mode can be hard for those with other disabilities, too.

• People with dyslexia (about 5-7% of the population, although some say it could be more) find it harder to decode light text on a dark background than dark text on a light background.

• People with glaucoma can see halos around text in dark mode. These halos can cause the text to blur and become illegible to them.

Dark mode is not a great for everyone. In general, a dark mode design should be avoided for long-form text (blogs, newsletters, articles, etc.), unless there’s an option to switch to light mode also made available.

For me, everything looked worse in the dark

I know what you’re thinking, “that chocolate looks divine!” It’s hard to find dark chocolate that looks unappetizing. Some things were just made for dark mode.

While dark mode started off as a cool, vibrant change, it slowly started eating away at me. To fully tell you what it did, let’s tangent for a second. It all connects, I promise.

My husband and I bought a house in September 2021. The most major updates it needed immediately (or so we thought) was new paint.

The basement walls were atrocious. The top half of every wall was a sky blue and the bottom half was a deep magenta. It was so ugly.

Before we moved in, we prioritized painting the basement and my office (cause I just had to have a blue wall). We left everything else alone because every other wall was painted gray.

Gray! A great neutral! We could definitely make that work!

And it was fine, for awhile. But slowly the gray started taking its toll on me. There’s no warmth in a gray wall. It’s drab and dreary and makes all the spaces feel darker.

This is basically what happened to me with dark mode.

What I once loved about it started to get to me. Staring at a rectangle of darkness for hours a day wasn’t exactly helping my mental health.

It made it easier to stay on my phone right before bed for hours, too. Procrastinating sleeping because I felt like my day was too short.

Which brings us to the last of the benefits that I have not commented on yet:

Dark mode is easier on your eyes in dark spaces

For all of the reading I did on dark mode, this benefit was the one that popped up everywhere. And it’s a double-edged sword, but they don’t tell you that.

Think about it. We’re bragging about being able to go on our phones before bed. About being able to read things more easily while out and about in dimly-lit rooms whether they’re bars or restaurants or theaters.

Regardless of where we are, don’t we have better things to be doing than staring at a sad, dark rectangle?

When was the last time you closed out of social media and thought, “Wow! I’m so refreshed after reading all about the state of the world and seeing how great everyone else is doing. No imposter syndrome or depression spiral to be found here.”

For me, it’s been never. I always feel so drained and mad at myself after spending half an hour or more scrolling on my phone.

It wasn’t just about the colors depressing me. It was about the content I was now spending way too much time on bringing my mood down.

The world is bigger than our 6-inch phone screens. We don’t need another reason to stare at them more. Because of that, this benefit just felt kind of sad to me.

How I brightened up my life

Isn’t this the prettiest fruit you’ve ever seen?? It’s like stained glass but edible. Dark mode could never.

All of the ways in which dark mode added to my depression, coupled with the fact that I have astigmatism, led me to questioning why I still used dark mode. And I didn’t have a good answer for myself.

So I switched.

Once I made the switch, I turned my brightness down cause wow, phone screens are bright when they’re not dipped in gray.

I also changed my display to have a slightly yellow tint to warm things up even more.

And after admiring the newfound light, I put my phone down.

Why?

Well, light mode is not quite as sleek and it’s way less enticing than dark mode. At least to me.

I didn’t fall into its web of lies and empty promises. I could treat it as just a phone. A tool. A depression spiral waiting to happen.

Okay, yeah, I’m being dramatic. Although, I did feel quite different about my phone after the switch.

The most major difference in my life though, was that I stopped spending hours scrolling on my phone before bed. Light mode was too harsh for my eyes. It helped me break my doom-scrolling habits and replace them with reading books and manga.

And while my relationship with my phone and social media isn’t exactly where I want it to be, it’s much better. And this switch helped immensely.

Where does that leave dark mode?

Obviously, what worked for me won’t work for everyone. And dark mode isn’t inherently evil or depressing.

Even though dark mode was slowly draining the life from me (is that how it keeps your phone alive longer?), a lot of people love it and have no problems.

So if you enjoy it, keep using it! Just be mindful of your audience if you’re designing something that’s effectively in permanent dark mode. It might not be the best experience for everyone.

For me, though, dark mode was the antithesis to everything else I was doing in my day-to-day life.

I use a sunlamp in the winter to help my seasonal depression. I’m always turning on lights and opening the blinds to see better.

Dark mode didn’t fit for me anymore. It didn’t spark joy. So I threw it in the (metaphorical) garbage.

And now, I feel as if I have new life. Taylor Swift puts these feelings best (as she almost always seems to do):

I've been sleeping so long in a 20-year dark night
And now I see daylight, I only see daylight

Thanks so much for venturing into the Blue Raspberry Patch with me! I’ve enjoyed exploring these topics in longer form and sharing little berries of info with you all.

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