Re: Changes for emacs 28

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Gregory Heytings <ghe@sdf.org> writes:

>>> I'd like to see some of these studies.  "Dark mode" goes against
>>> what so many people have been doing for centuries (think of books
>>> for example) that I'm really curious to see why they were wrong.
>>
>> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28904-x
>>
>>  “We found that reading dark text on bright background reduces
>> choroidal thickness in one hour, while reading bright text on dark
>> background increases the thickness of the choroid. Since choroidal
>> thickness changes are precursors for future changes in eye growth,
>> we expect that there will be selective effects on subsequent myopia
>> development.”
>>
>
> Okay, so according to these authors, in essence "light mode" might
> perhaps in the long term lead to more myopia.

No, the choroid became significantly thicker after *one* hour of reading
white text on black, and significantly thinner after *one* hour of
reading black text on white.  Choroid thickness is known to be a
significant factor in myopia.

The open questions include a description of the exact mechanism leading
to this observable effect and identification of whether it is (lack or
presence of) ON or OFF stimulation that has the effect.  The effect
itself is not in question.

> In short, that's already an interesting indication, but I'll wait to
> see (much) more studies like this before being convinced.

That’s fine.  I don’t think the topic is black and white (hah) anyway,
so I don’t aim to convince or be convinced myself.  There are simply
different metrics on which light and dark mode score differently well or
poorly, so I don’t expect there to be a clear winner either way.  It’s a
value judgement and finding a personal compromise, weighing eye strain,
readability, short-term and long-term changes to the eyes, etc.

We shouldn’t pretend that there’s one best way for everyone.  The most
eye-saving way forward is clearly not to read at all, but we don’t
recommend using emacspeak instead of displaying text — though in all
seriousness, perhaps there should be a simple accessibility menu to
enable or disable emacspeak, to select dark or light mode, to set the
text contrast (similar to how the solarized theme grades colours on an
adjustable contrast curve), etc.

-- 
Ricardo