Kev I would say it is the temporal dithering technology that is becoming more popular and aggressive recently. This technology is also the only way to explain why a device suddenly becomes very hard on the eyes just after an OS update.
MacBook Air M1 eye strain only since Sonoma 14.1.2
2 months later
I have the same problem with MB Air M2 and Sonoma latest version. I talk about it here https://ledstrain.org/d/2509-macos-sonoma-eye-strain-mb-air-m2
I will be forced to downgrade to Ventura.
Have your tried creating virtual screen with BetterDisplay? It's a game changer for me
Kev It could be something else, not temporal dithering, not PWM, although these are also factors. All we know is - this happened kind of suddenly, and the strain jumped into new heights. It could be some general software trend, or it could be hardware trend. I personally gravitate to hardware trend. Since all laptop screens pretty much come from the same place, this could be fueled by White LED backlights or something like that, which introduces its own constant flicker and changes the light (or EMF) itself that is being pushed into your eyes which can not cope anymore. Now add PWM and temporal dithering to the equation and you have a real problem. There is nothing you can do except stop buying new laptops and simply search for second hand known good devices, otherwise industry gets wrong signals. As for apple, it now even hides panel manufacturer information from new machines, so users are really prisoners of these closed systems.
2 months later
For me it also works. I am using a virtual display and do not have any issues.
Kev Do you also have Stillcolor installed? That should improve things even further — using virtual display doesn't fully disable temporal dithering, but Stillcolor eliminates dithering pretty much entirely on m1air.
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@"bliink"#p35148 No it doesn't for us, your advertisement for your generic posture app is pretty useless here.
We HAVE been trying to improving posture, using eyedrops, blinking more, taking breaks, trying new glasses and none of those truly fix "bad screens" for us.
But on the other hand, when I finally disabled temporal dithering on my old Windows laptop I suddenly was able to read my screen perfectly for hours with no strain because I fixed the core issue with that screen. It doesn't even matter if I'm in the worst posture ever, because even then, that laptop doesn't strain me at all anymore because I fixed the screen's problem itself 
Also, blinking more actually hurts to do while looking at temporally dithered screens for me, as then I have to refocus and it feels like everything starts to move around and go double and I also feel pain while trying to realign the image.
However, on screens without dithering, yep I intentionally blink more and it helps a lot! But I can't do that on every screen… AKA that does not help me at all while using bad screens!
DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs How did you disable dithering on windows? I used dithering.exe on intel GPU but it never made a big difference 
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Lauda89 the laptop was from 2012 so ditherig.exe worked on it perfectly, it reduced colors all the way down to true six bit surprisingly
but yeah unfortunately it doesn't work on a lot of laptops, i was just lucky with it being compatible with mine (2012 Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13, Windows 8.1, Intel HD 4000)
2 months later
I can confirm that doing a full reset for macbook air m2 back to Ventura simnifically reduces eye strain. Something is really off with Sonoma. Do not upgrade, stick with original one.
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Donux By full reset do you mean DFU restore including rolling back system firmware?
Because my Air M1 currently has a weird combo of Ventura 13.6.6 OS in About This Mac but running "on top of" newer Sonoma 14.4.1 "firmware/bootloader/whatever the M1 equivalent of a BIOS version is" (which I wasn't aware was the case until recently) and I have issues. I'm suspecting that if I DFU restore, instead of just reinstall, to make sure even the firmware is back on Ventura too it might improve things
DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs That is a very good point, I personally did not follow anything more deeper than going into system restore, deleting partition and reinstalling it from scratch. Probably rolling back firmware should be done too, although I am kind of cautious, it is not bad now as long as you stick with lowest grade color profile (Generic RGB) and still color. Also disable night shift, which is a bit suspicious to me as to how it overrides True Tone (or combines both). I think if true tone matches color temperature with ambient temperature - this is a way to go, at least during a day.
Found this article, https://siliconangle.com/2024/03/22/apple-reportedly-cancels-internal-effort-develop-custom-microled-displays/. So apparently Apple will not continue with its own display manufacturing effort. Probably its too complex and too entangled supply chains, and expensive labour. And panel manufacturers are very secretive leveraging their trade secrets for better sales.
Donux Ventura
Which ventura version? 13.6.6 or earlier?
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Donux BTW, interesting note about firmware versions is that Asahi Linux runs "within" a different macOS version firmware (and thus different display control processor firmware as well) from my main macOS installation — even though I have Ventura 13.6.6 within 14.4.1 firmware on my M1 Air, whenever I'm booted into Asahi it's "temporarily" running within 13.2 firmware instead.
What I've noticed is that even though Asahi doesn't yet have a Stillcolor equivalent and I can still notice a certain level of temporal dithering flicker around edges of text because of that, the level of flicker I notice is generally less than macOS (even with Stillcolor) — and, most importantly, the backlight feels totally different in Asahi.
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My M1 Air backlight in macOS (Ventura on top of Sonoma firmware) feels too bright at all brightness levels, everything has a sort of glow to it and the display still feels very bright at low backlight levels.
However, in Asahi (which is running on top of a different "temporary" Ventura 13.2 firmware that's loaded in at boot) — even though I still notice some temporal dithering flicker, the backlight of the display feels much more "low contrast and mild with MUCH less glow" at the same time as colors remain able to appear just as saturated as they would on macOS.
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There is also much less "false sense of 3D depth effect" while running within Asahi's temporary macOS 13.2 firmware, even if looking at identical photos, screenshots, or wallpapers (but not entirely solved).
White backgrounds especially feel notably different between OSes. The IOMFB backlight compensation disabling trick I recently discovered finally made white backgrounds in macOS feel much closer to Asahi Linux, but it's still different.
I also don't believe the difference in this "backlight feel" is because of PWM because the PWM detectable on dark gray when filming at 240hz is still present in both macOS and Asahi.
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Overall, the display feels entirely different, but at this point I'm not sure whether it's "because of Linux" or "specifically because of how Linux temporarily loads in older macOS display firmware".
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Final note about M1 Air is that I can actually use it very well outdoors in sunlight on both OSes. This is why I still prefer it to the M1 Max M1 MBP which was unusable everywhere… I'd actually consider the M1 Air usable outdoors which is why I kept mine.
I'm not sure if this is because of some effect of the ambient light sensor or just that sunlight masks a lot of the problems of the display. I know that it's not because of reflections on the glossy screen "helping", as I actually use a matte screen protector and that makes it better for me in all conditions. (Seemingly contrary to many others here, I strongly prefer matte over glossy.)
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However, the M1 Air still very exhausting to use indoors (and it doesn't matter if it's under my otherwise awesome Waveform Centric bulbs or under bad 100% flicker LEDs/flourescent bulbs). Whenever I'm at home, I can get literally dozens of times more work done with almost no strain through my 2012 Windows laptop + remote desktop into macOS.
M1 Air is not "absolutely crippling" indoors like the M1 Max MBP was because I can still get some work done on it giving the "illusion of productivity", but the moment I switch to my 2012 Lenovo it's like my productivity skyrockets and so many tasks no longer feel difficult.
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I can't DFU downgrade at the moment as I'm busy and a lot of important work is currently running off of my M1 Air… but when I'm more free I'll try to DFU downgrade to 13.2 and see if the backlight while macOS is able to feel more like Asahi Linux does + remaining able ro run Stillcolor at the same time.
Not super confident but something in me feels like it's worth a try. I'm willing to be the "test subject" here as I'm not satisfied with my M1 Air screen indoors anyway.
Glad to hear that just a simple downgrade improved your screen, in your case definitely avoid messing with a setup that's working for you.
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DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs I recall that you were praising the M1 Air + Stillcolor + BetterDisplay as a near perfect solution with minimal eye strain. You're now saying it's not "absolutely crippling". I take that to mean "somewhat crippling". That's a 180 on your original position. I'd be interested to know what made you change your mind?
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For me, Sonoma 14.5 is the best yet on M1 Air. And l've run all releases since 2020 release of the M1. That said, I have only run Stillcolor and the other fixes on some version of Sonoma. So, Ventura with Stillcolor could indeed be better.
I haven't tried Asahi for a while, so I'll give that a try. I actually tried an old PC with Linux and it was worse than the M1 Air
I think I'm stuck with the M1 for a while unless someone knows a laptop available today that's comfortable.
I've never had eyestrain with a modern TV unless I use it as a laptop display. So there is that