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Twitter introduces Night Mode, so late-night scrolling won’t mess with your sleep patterns

Twitter after dark.

 

AJ Dellinger

Tech

Posted on Aug 22, 2016   Updated on May 26, 2021, 5:14 am CDT

You no longer need to strain your eyes while ending your evening with a Twitter nightcap or doing some late night sliding into DMs; the social network has finally introduced a Night Mode to its iOS app that will shift the app to a darker color scheme.

Announced on Monday, the new feature will turn the piercing white background of the Twitter app for iOS to a theme that consists of shades of grays, blues, and black. The feature arrived for Android devices earlier this year.

https://twitter.com/twitter/status/767759522437836800

To activate Night Mode, users will need to make sure they are using the most recent version of Twitter—Night Mode is making its debut in version 6.60 of the iOS app. Once up to date, open the “Me” tab and click the gear icon. An option should appear in the menu that reads, “Turn on night mode.” Click it and watch the color change. It can be turned off the same way.

The feature will be familiar to anyone who used Falcon Pro, a third-party Twitter client available for Android that also included a night mode. Joaquim Vergès, the developer behind that popular alternative Twitter client, joined the official Twitter team last year with the goal of improving the service’s first-party apps.

Vergès’s presence is likely welcome to anyone who has tried to browse Twitter late at night only to have their eyes burned by the bright color scheme. 

The issue may not have been as prominent for iOS users since the introduction of Night Shift, a feature released in iOS 9.3. Night Shift, which borrows heavily from popular third-party app F.lux, automatically changes the warmth or coolness of the iOS device screen based on what time it is. The feature is designed to cut down on blue light exposure at night, which can mess with our circadian rhythms and make getting a good night’s sleep more difficult.

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*First Published: Aug 22, 2016, 5:25 pm CDT