I'll explain why, which takes some space. For the short skinny, how you might prefer to set things, go to the bottom of the post.
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The specification for working with Rec.709 is extensive, and includes amazing details for working in image correction. And so to work in full specs, it includes the monitor and room brightness levels.
The specified monitor setup is sRGB primaries, D65 white point, a power-law curve essentially similar to gamma 2.4, and a screen brightness of white at 100 nits.
Then they have the viewing situation specced also. The environment is a pretty dark though not quite blackened room, I don't recall the general lux level, but it's pretty dim. Any wall or surface visible to the worker when working must be totally neutral gray, the value of the paint specified. There must be a 'bias light' between the monitor and the wall so that there is a very small lightened area of an exact amount around the monitor from the working position.
And of course, all lights in the room must be D65. So it's dark enough most colorists need a small light on their worktop ... and that's got to be a pretty darn dim D65 one.
So working for total evaluation of the image is supposed to be done in that darkened space. And in that darkened space, the 100 nits screen is quite bright enough.
But ... working in a normally lit room, the specs for the monitor go to essentially gamma 2.2.
So for actual image verification, you need to be in a "semi-darkened room" ... funsies. And yes, my working environment is quite tight to the specs. If I go full colorist mode.
For most people, the working area is not going to be that dark, and working with the screen at gamma 2.2 is better as it visually lifts the shadows a bit for you. However, from the extensive testing that resulted in those specs, it is known that in that brighter room, it is not a good environment for color/hue judgements. Especially color saturation.
Ergo the requirement for full-on colorist work to be done in the darker room.
So this is a bit tricky to get setup at first, and colorists have always had an issue since flat-screens replaced CRTs with clients looking at the image on their screens. Most of the many I work with have specs in their contrast about even how judgements can be accepted.
Such as either from in-room work with them, or now, quite a few use specific iPad models that they own and mod the screen settings so they get fairly close visual match to their reference monitor. Their contract says change requests or orders must be done in-room or from viewing only on that iPad in a fairly dark room.
I hope that covers the problems adequately.
Also, note, no two screens can possibly show the identical image!
Due to the vagaries of manufacturing tolerances no two pixel elements will be exactly the same in micro amounts, let alone the colored filters that are placed over them in a pattern so that the camera can be tricked into creating color by complex math, or ... the diodes that produce color in screens.
This is part of why Grade 1 Reference Screens (which is a very strict specification itself) are so expensive. The makers of screens measure every screen coming off the line, and the most accurate ones are sold for a vastly higher price than the ones with more variance.
Grade 1 Reference monitors are the highest, tightest tolerance; expensive computer and TV makes come next, on down the line to the cheapo monitors and TVs.
But even those spendy Reference monitors, two "identical" models side by side, calibrated with the same expensive photo spectrometers, given both a calibration and a profile pass, fed images from the same breakout device from BlackMagic or AJA, so in their profile passes the charts produced by the software are virtually identical ... and yet ...
With a high-end group of viewers, experience pros, in a darkened room ... they will see differences between those two monitors.
Now ... throw in the variables of cheaper screens, what the OS and screen makers do to "enhance the viewing experience" ... user settings ... and the variablity of the lighting that the user views things in.
And beginning colorists are told this dictum:
NO one, on any screen by any deliverable method (including network broadcast, streaming, or theatrical release) ... will ever see exactly what you saw while grading. It is not physically possible.
So why the specs? Well, if you follow those in doing your grading, then, in relative terms!!!! ... your outputs will look similar to other professionally produced media on any screen.
There's another phrase ... "You can't fix gramma's green TV." Truth.
So try this: set the Mac monitor to Reference mode HDTV, but in Premiere, use the viewing option for gamma 2.2.
This will probably give you more what you would like to see.
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