For a long time I have been experimenting with different devices and different operating systems. One day I was making virtual machines on my Windows laptop and made Windows 7 VM. I have felt slight eye strain and discomfort on the same machine with Windows 11, but the same machine with Windows 7 felt different, very easy on eyes.
Windows XP, 7, old Mac OS X versions (10.9<), old iOS (6<), older Android versions all use sort of skeuomorphic design. None gave me eye strain, no matter which device I used. Back in 2013 when Apple rolled iOS 7 everyone was so hyped with "minimalism", but the day I installed it on my iPhone 5 I felt that I find it harder to focus on. Not like eye strain but just uncomfortable. Everyone said that "people will eventually get used to".
And now after 10 years we have the same design, same flat stuff across all machines. And I still didn't get used to it, still cannot focus and now have eye strain with many modern devices, although not all of them.
Each time I grab my 1st gen iPad with cracked screen I feel… relief? It is just easy on eyes. You can see pixels in it but it is really good to look at. Same with my old iMac that I still use. And same for any old iPhone (4, 2g etc) or Android (I have some old Galaxy noname lying around). All devices share the common skeuomorphic UI designs.
Maybe they all were wrong and interface should actually look beautiful and deep? They told people gonna get used to flat, but it was all blatant lies.