Dark mode was NOT created "to help you focus on your work".
It was created to be easier on the eyes at night / in the dark. And because it's a trend.
Also, when they say that black text on a white background is easier on the eyes, this is true for printed stuff, paper, reflective surfaces. That's different than a screen.
Dark mode was NOT created "to help you focus on your work".
It was created to be easier on the eyes at night / in the dark.
You should probably read it.
Unfortunately, Apple’s marketing claims about Dark Mode’s benefits fly in the face of the science of human visual perception. Except in extraordinary situations, Dark Mode is not easy on the eyes, in any way. The human eyes and brain prefer dark-on-light, and reversing that forces them to work harder to read text, parse controls, and comprehend what you’re seeing.
It does extend the life of certain cell phone batteries though. (Depending on the kind of screen used.)
Dark mode (and light text on dark backgrounds) has always been mostly about being hacker-chic.
Dark mode makes it really difficult for me to differentiate the edges of objects on the screen.
This is something noted in Apple's own Human Interface Guidelines wrote: Avoid using colors that make it hard for people to perceive content in your app. For example, colorblind people might not be able to distinguish some color combinations, and insufficient contrast can cause icons and text to blend with the background and make content hard to read. For guidance, see Color and Contrast.
Metacell wrote: I seem to have this vague memory of when GUIs were new that you could change virtually all of the colors and styles to anything you wanted.
That was so late 80's, early 90's. We are now living in the era of paying extra to change the colors to those arbitrarily chosen by "theme designers".