You Underestimate the Power of the Dark Side
Darth Vader says that to Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars: Episode VI—Return of the Jedi” in an admittedly darker context than iOS apps, but here’s why we should listen to him.
There are two things that I know about myself. The first is that I’m a night owl — I am alert at night and…not in the morning. The second is that I will always use the time before falling asleep to browse my iPhone.
Unfortunately, the latter is both killing me, and perpetuating the former. In a TIME.com article citing a Michigan State University study, the physiological response to nighttime smartphone usage is outlined:
“Blue light” emitted from smartphones interferes with the body’s levels of melatonin, a chemical that promotes sleep. So even if you’re using your phone for decidedly non-business purposes . . . chances are good that your gadget will be messing with your ability to catch some quality shut-eye.
My iPhone’s blue light is hacking my brain into staying awake. Although I’m somewhat proud of being a night owl, I would never intentionally force it. Just as I’m wary of ingesting caffeine after a certain hour, so too should I be wary of the blue light.
Admittedly, learning of these dangers hasn’t driven me to change my habits, but I do have an idea about how to help solve the problem. I want to be upfront and let you know that my proposed solution isn’t even a solution, it’s more like a small patch that I think will go a long way.
I want darkness.
Much of the current iOS designs boast clean, white space, because getting rid of the clutter boosts minimalistic beauty. However, when using smartphones in the dark, all the empty space is blinding. That needs to change.
There are workarounds, sure. My go-to has been inverting the screen. Though it’s buried, it’s simple to add it as a shortcut in iOS: Settings > General > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut > Invert Colors. I frequently triple-tap the home button to reduce the screen’s harshness, even before the sun has set. It works great for text-only situations, but renders photos, videos, and colored indicators useless.
Other ways to circumvent the problem are:
• Reduce the screen’s brightness (easy, but still lots of blue light)
• Third-party apps with dark modes (requires some digging, and I don’t want redundant apps taking up local space)
• Jailbreak your iPhone and install Eclipse (this is exactly what I want, but I don’t want to jailbreak my phone)
• Wear sunglasses at night (interesting and clever, but I’m not exactly to the point where I’m going to purchase and use a pair of strictly nighttime-smartphone-viewing sunglasses)
• Quit using your smartphone hours before bedtime (what, are you crazy?)
I’m not satisfied with any of those options. What I want is for everyone to follow the example of iOS apps like Pocket, Spotify, Reddit’s Alien Blue, or Yahoo Sports, and either darken the app’s interface, or offer a native dark mode.
The Chicago Tribune writes that Apple has acknowledged that an inverted screen cuts out some blue light:
Representatives of Apple note that blue light emissions can be reduced on the iPad by adjusting brightness and switching to white on black mode at night through the “settings” feature.
I don’t know to what extent blue light is reduced, but every bit helps. I’m calling for some of the biggest players in the mobile space to offer native dark modes: social media. A recent study by We Are Social, found that 1.65 billion social media accounts are accessed via mobile. And roughly a quarter of active mobile social accounts on the planet are accessed with a mobile device.
Facebook and Twitter have often talked about social responsibility, and I think combating blue light in their mobile apps is no exception. My habit of manually inverting the screen helps when the social media content is text, but is less helpful when accessing pages with images. The browsing experience would be a lot healthier, and a lot less jarring without blue faces.
Hardik Pandya, a talented designer, programmer, and developer, designed a Twitter for iOS dark mode concept that’s exactly what I’m advocating for. It’s easy to see which design causes less eye strain when switching your gaze between the two. Eye strain aside, the dark mode’s reduction of blue light is immense — and profile pictures are still recognizable.
It’s not just Facebook and Twitter. Apps like Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube would be doing their users a great service by offering a dark mode. There aren’t any elegant workarounds, because manually inverting the screen leaves image-heavy apps unusable.
In this innovation-rich industry, it’s surprising that dark modes are not pervasive. At this point, it’s important to realize that it’s not just an aesthetic preference, it’s a health-related issue.
“You underestimate the power of the dark side,” Darth Vader tells Luke Skywalker, “If you will not fight, then you will meet your destiny.” I’m mildly afraid that a modern case of meeting my destiny will result in daily smartphone hangovers — or perhaps something worse. So maybe it’s time to embrace the dark side, just as Darth would have wanted.
Hit that Recommend button below if you agree, dark modes should be implemented. Or, if there are any solutions that I’m not aware of, post a response!
Special thanks to Westley Garcia for editing.
