I remember having a discussion about this with a buddy who noticed I used a dark themed editor. He cited some study, I don't know exactly what study it was, that said our brains work better looking at a white background. (Perhaps more neurons fire or something like that)
What do you think about this? Do you feel you work better with a black background, or do you just use one because it's more cool/retro looking than a white background?
In fact, there have been numerous studies that show we're much better at reading white-on-black text, but because of historical reasons (paper) many of us are conditioned to prefer black-on-white. That 63% would be higher with a different cultural background.
Note that not all such studies look at the same thing. I should've been more precise: on paper and with training, people were much faster at quickly reading a page if it was light-on-dark than dark-on-light or dark-on-white.
Consistent average brightness across your field of view (both within the monitor and beyond) is far more important to your visual strain than whether monitor is dim or bright.
Next time you feel strained looking at your screen, look around it at the other lights in the room/outside and notice how even the brightness is.
I honestly cannot tell a difference other than I prefer working in a darker environment in general. When I'm at home I have a 40watt desk lamp behind my monitor pointing at the wall full screen vim with modified IR_Black as my theme.
I remember reading something similar 20 years ago or so: not that the specific background color mattered, but that a light background works better than dark, and that the contrast between the foreground/background matters (the higher the better).
What do you think about this? Do you feel you work better with a black background, or do you just use one because it's more cool/retro looking than a white background?