Correlation Between Font Size and Screen Brightness

Over the course of the day, I began to realize that there exists a strong inverse relationship between the size of the font on the screen and the light required to comfortably read it. I noticed that when I am in class, I have my laptop screen on the dimmest setting so as to allow my battery to last longer. At this low brightness setting, in a bright classroom, I blow up whatever I am looking at to nearly double its native size to be able to read it comfortably.

At the other end of the spectrum, I significantly decreased the font size in Eclipse, my programming environment, so that I could see more of my code at once. After doing this, the first thing that I did was turn up the brightness on my screen, which allowed me to see my code much more easily.

I am sure that this trend has its limits in either direction; if you get too dark, you won't be able to see the text, no matter how large you make it. Since the human eye only has a certain level of precision, if you make the text too small, increasing the brightness will not do enough to make the text readable. I am fortunate to have good enough eye-sight for this observation to hold for a relatively large range of brightness levels.