Dark/Night is mode tougher on my eyes?

[ropeadope]

Hello! I don't post here often but this sounds like the kind of thing you guys would understand and could explain. I generally don't have issues with eye strain or flickering, but when I use any sort of Dark Mode (which is usually a dark grey with white/soft white text), it seems like the entire screen is "strobing", and it's tough on my eyes. This strobing effect seems to be amplified by f.lux and similar blue light eliminator features (Night Shift on iOS and Night Light for Android). Of course looking at a bright white screen at night is also not easy on or good for the eyes. So I'm not sure what to do for reading online at night, if both normal brightness and dark/night mode are equally taxing on my eyes. This is not an issue with a single display, but across multiple devices on which I've had this issue; two IPS monitors (one 1080p 60hz and one 1440p 165hz) and my phone which is OLED 60hz.

So I was curious if anyone could explain this, or have experienced this, and/or if you have any advice to eliminate the strobing (possibly not the right term, but it seems like an apt description), or if I should just stop using dark mode and f.lux-like features, and just simply use ultra low brightness at night instead.

Bonus question: I've always wondered, are programs like f.lux bad for displays at all? Are they forcing the monitor to run at a certain low hue which is stressing out the monitor display? I've always been curious about that. It could very well be the opposite in that the monitor is obviously using less energy when it's much dimmer.

Thanks for reading! If anyone knows about this stuff, it's you guys.