Facebook will soon offer its users a Messenger app that’s a little bit easier on the eyes.
The newest version of Messenger features a dark mode, which changes the app’s background from white to black and makes some other subtle display changes.
Dark backgrounds are believed to put less strain on human eyes than light ones. The Ontario Association of Optometrists recommends that people try to align screen brightness with the light level of the surrounding area.
Dark mode will be rolled out to all Messenger users in the near future, but anyone using it via the iOS or Android app can already activate it by sending a crescent moon emoji in any Messenger chat.
Facebook Messenger dark mode: Here’s how to turn it on
First, open the Facebook Messenger app on your iPhone or Android smartphone and select any chat thread you want to interact with.
In the chat thread, type the smiley face icon inside the message compose window. Go to the Emoji tab and try to find the Crescent moon emoji and send it over.
Once done, you will notice an animation with the Crescent moon emoji dropping like rain over your chat. When the animation is over, a message pops up notifying that “You found dark mode” at the top.
Tap it, and you will be taken to the Settings page where you can either turn on or off the so-called dark mode. In case you don’t see the animation when you send the Crescent moon emoji, it is recommended to repeat the process. Hopefully, it should work this time.
There are several advantages with using dark mode, especially at night as it reduced blue light which is believed to be more harmful.
Night mode or Dark mode is also better for battery life on smartphones, which is another reason why many companies are implementing this natively in the user interface. Samsung has done this with the OneUI as well, where there is a Night mode theme in the user interface. Google is also working on a Night mode with Android Q as well.