The dark theme of your smartphone is preferable only in some situations: that’s when you absolutely must prefer it to the light one.
Night mode has practically invaded technology: from Chrome to Firefox, passing through File Explorer, Windows 10, macOS, and so on and so forth.
Even today some applications use a simulated dark theme on operating systems that do not have dark mode. Having said that, we are sure that the night mode is always preferable to light theme? The answer is not at all obvious.
The dark theme of the smartphone is not always preferable
Let’s start immediately from an assumption: black text on a white background is much easier to read than the other way around (white text on a black background). It is from many points of view: the text is more understandable, the reading speed thus increases and we are all happier.
The same goes for icons and vector images: according to what science claims, they are much more visible on a white background.
Why is this happening? Why when the eye observes something dark – anything – against a light background the pupil reacts to the stimulus contracting to let in less light. In this way increases the depth of field “of the frame” and everything appears more legible.
Conversely, when the eye observes something bright against a dark background, the pupil dilates to let in as much light as possible, because the focal point is essentially shallower. The dark theme, therefore, should technically – indeed, scientifically – damage productivity because it slows down in practice all even the most trivial operations, such as the identification of figures.
Yet according to some people the night mode is much better. So what is the truth? We try to find out.
When it is preferable to activate the night mode
Many users state in no uncertain terms that the night mode is better than the day one. They have no doubts about it, they are quite sure that it is.
Many they prefer dark mode especially in the evening, when natural light has practically vanished. This happens because when everything around is dark, the light from the screen in the long run creates an annoying bright halo that hurts the eyes. Also – always according to science – before going to sleep exposure to bright light from the screen spoils sleepbecause it stimulates the brain too much, so it would still be preferable to stay away from it.
Finally, there is a fact that we absolutely cannot underestimate or ignore: the dark theme consumes less energy, especially if the device has an OLED display. This happens because, unlike what happens in LCD panels, which are backlit, in these when a pixel is black it is simply off, it has no light source and therefore consumes less energy.
Even Google has decided to do an experiment and has understood that the consumption of Maps by activating the dark mode decreases by 63%. All this affects the battery, which by activating the dark theme will also last much longer.
Having said that, is this always preferable? Not actually. In light of what we have said so far, the best solution would be to use the light theme during the day and the dark one at night. The virtue, also in this case, lies in the middle.