Without taking an extreme or absolutist stance on this issue, I generally agree with the author here. Dark mode should be reserved for after sunset and before sunrise.
The eyes are adapted to see daylight levels of light during daytime. If your ambient lighting and screen don't match this, then you're not using your body in the way it's evolved to function. What we need more of are screens with anti-glare and a wide range of brightness levels.
What might have a worse impact on your eyesight is the effects of Myopia, which is being exacerbated by basically every portable device with a screen. Anyone who has the technological literacy to enable dark mode (and advocate for it) is likely someone who gets above-average screen time and is therefore someone at a higher risk of myopia.
Dark is hard to see. Light is easy to see. I use light at every opportunity. Dark partially grew out of an interest in saving battery power on early oled screens, but dev's noticed a certain demographic drawn towards the dark look.
Dark versus light, in general, is fascinating. My fiancee and I have really different light sensitivities. She'll struggle to see in dimmer/only natural light indoors and I'll be able to see fine. Turning on overhead lighting really bothers me and causes a stress-like reaction. I'm much more amenable to artificial light after sunset and if it's indirect, diffuse light (i.e. a standing lamp).
It absolutely depends on what you do, for any work involving computer imagery, a dark surround, i.e., dark UI, around the area of interest, e.g., 3D Viewport, 2D Canvas is a must so that to not bias the work. This one of the main reason why Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Autodesk Maya, Blender, The Foundry Nuke, Autodesk Flame, Baselight Filmlight, etc... all have dark themed UI.
> for any work involving computer imagery, a dark surround, i.e., dark UI, around the area of interest, e.g., 3D Viewport, 2D Canvas is a must so that to not bias the work
Depends on if you target a dark or bright ui. If you target a bright environment then you want to work in a bright environment and vice versa, otherwise you bias the work for the wrong environment as you say.
Dark mode already isn't the default option across a vast majority of the entire internet.
There are easily 10x if not 100x as many sites that only support their default of light mode as those that even offer built-in support for dark mode, and it's more like 1000x as many as those that default to dark mode.
TFA does seem to be explicitly demanding erasure of the preferences of an insignificantly tiny minority of websites.
I don't disagree with most of your message, but it seems lack of sunlight is as much (or more) to blame. You can use dark mode AND go outside as much as possible. The blue light emitted by a screen is no substitute for the ball of fusion in the sky.
No, it’s only configurable. And many people like myself leave it dark mode permanently unless in a bright place.
I think the debate comes down to how bright you keep your environment.
OP likes bright overhead lighting and confuses that preference for the superiority of a preference downstream of it. Yawn.
I’d rather look at a bright 27” screen in dark mode where I see full color fidelity than dim the screen so that bright backgrounds aren’t too harsh. But it’s just a preference.
The eyes are adapted to see daylight levels of light during daytime. If your ambient lighting and screen don't match this, then you're not using your body in the way it's evolved to function. What we need more of are screens with anti-glare and a wide range of brightness levels.
What might have a worse impact on your eyesight is the effects of Myopia, which is being exacerbated by basically every portable device with a screen. Anyone who has the technological literacy to enable dark mode (and advocate for it) is likely someone who gets above-average screen time and is therefore someone at a higher risk of myopia.