• elrik@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Doesn’t paper reflect light when it’s white? If it absorbed it, it’d appear black.

    • jarfil@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Paper reflects light for white, ink absorbs light for black.

      OLED and CRT screens stay off for black, use power for light.

      LCD screens keep the backlight on all the time, only hide it for color/black.

      E-ink works like paper… but has low refresh rates and the displays tend to break somewhat easily.

      If we all used dark mode on OLED screens, we could save maybe 0.0000001% of energy, making everything “more sustainable”.

      • admiralteal@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        LCDs do not stay off for black. LCDs fill the entire back with bright white light and then shutter off pixels to make them black. The energy used between displaying white (the backlight) and displaying black is basically the same.

        OLED is a bit more complex.

    • 520@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Paper reflects existing light, but backlit screens emit it like a torch.

      You are right though, paper doesn’t absorb it unless it’s coloured in any way