How many hours a day do you spend staring at your phone? According to RescueTime, the average person spends 3 hours 15 minutes on their phone every day. Medical research has indicated that this amount of screen time can have a negative impact on physical health — everything from headaches or trouble sleeping to visual impairment. 

 It should be no surprise then that phone makers and users are often on the lookout for innovations that alleviate these problems. When Apple’s iPhone launched its dark theme this fall, many made claims that it was better for the eyes. This has created a conversation on various social media platforms and as a result, more and more apps have adopted the dark and light theme options to stay relevant. But is it really any better for us?

“I do not think dark mode affects eye health,” Dr. Euna Koo, an ophthalmologist at the Stanford Byers Eye Institute told CNN Business. “The duration of use is likely much more important than the mode or the intensity of the brightness of the device when it comes to the effect of this dark mode on eye fatigue and potentially eye health.”

The dark theme may not be directly hurting people’s eyes, but it is decreasing their productivity, according to professor Wilkin of Visual Neuroscience at the University of Essex. This is because people are conditioned to read black text on a white background as they grow up, like most printed papers. The change to white text on black, also called negative polarity, causes users to become distracted and slows the rate of reading down. Add this to the fact that phones are already distracting with constant notifications pulling the user away from the task at hand. The contrast that dark mode uses is great for dark, evening situations but during the day, causes the person’s eyes to strain.

iPhone users have the option to set the preference in settings so that the light theme will switch to dark at a specific time. This way a person is able to get their aesthetic fix without decreasing their productivity.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that too much screen time — of any kind — is not good for our health. According to The Vision Council, looking at screens for long periods of time causes a person’s eyes to stop fully blinking. They start half-blinking due to the close proximity of the screen and the minimal eye movement. This causes eye dryness, which can be very harmful to a person’s eyes and can cause digital eye strain. The symptoms of digital eye strain are headaches, sore or tired eyes and stiff necks. This is why it is important to monitor and reduce one’s screen time, so it doesn’t begin affecting a person’s health.

Besides reducing one’s screen time, a great alternative is purchasing a pair of blue-light-blocking glasses. They can be purchased in drug stores and online on Amazon for roughly $15. They originated from the glasses NASA provided Astronauts in space to protect their eyes from the sun’s harmful UV rays.