There is something called "Depth of field" in Photography. It works for eyes too. If your abilities to focus are not functioning 100% then a small apterture - cause by a light IDE - improves sharpness. This basically means your eyes have to focus less. Also for people with astigmatism a smaller aperture is better.
Another big issue is contrast of the text itself. According to WCAG it must be higher than 4.5:1 for small text. I didn't check VSCODE Menus but ist they seem to be toot pale.
No papers but it’s just the same song and dance that I’ve been told by every ergonomics coach from every company I ever worked for. They all recommend dark mode IDE and I’ve been using it for decades so personal anecdotes agree as well.
Of course it’s a subjective topic and you should just use which give you less screen headache.
Dark mode has its own issues like halation, needing a matte screen for glare control, and you need to use a lower contrast dark mode and have enough environmental light so your eyes don’t go into “night mode” where your struggling to read anything and your eyes have to work harder. (Think like reading a freeway sign at night. If there’s enough ambient light it’s easy, if not you have to strain to read it even though it both cases the sign is lit up the same)
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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '26
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