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My experience running my phone in greyscale for the past several weeks
So for the past several weeks, I have been running my phone almost exclusively in greyscale. This is a tactic that is normally recommended for reducing phone usage, and can be easily done in iOS and Android through accessibility settings. The primary argument is without the colours to grab your attention, the phone looks less enticing.
My experience has been mostly positive, with a few drawbacks. Overall, it has made me use my phone less, although it is not the only change I have done.
Benefits:
- I do find my phone less distracting. It is less appealing.
- Text based content still works great.
- Images are normally readable, although sometimes I miss subtlety in images.
- If needed I can toggle it off, but I rarely do so.
Drawbacks:
- It took me several days to adjust, and it was a hard adjustment period.
- Some apps use colour for organization. The biggest offender in my use case for this is Three Cheers for Tildes. Overall the app is great, but new comments being denoted by an orange line is not readable for me. However, this just at times leads me to wait until I am at a desktop to look at the thread. I do think both on website and in apps Tildes should look at putting new comments with a dotted line, to not rely only on colour for accessibility reasons.
Surprises:
- The biggest surprise for me is how unappealing my phone is in colour, since the use of colour everywhere is jarring. Most people do not realize how bright and colourful even phone menus are, until they run greyscale for an extended period of time. It has become more obvious to me how much app developers (and even OS developers) are using colour to grab our attention and suck us in.
Sounds very similar to my experience switching to a 5.4" phone (iPhone mini) from a 5.8" phone (Pixel 4a). At some point, our only weapon against the armies of psychology PhDs that want to steal our attention is to make their weapons smaller and greyer so our silly lizard brains don't get distracted by the shiny.
I think sometimes people underestimate how many talented people in psychology end up working for tech companies where their job is to create systems that capture our attention. The red notification is the simple one, but there are presumably a long list of patterns and design choices we are unaware of that are purely there to keep us engaged.
Working in software myself, and it breaks my heart. I grew up very naive about how business works, and had all of these visions of the future of technology. This was in the early 90s, and I would dream about a time when we could talk to anyone anywhere, with video, and it wouldn't matter where you were.
But it was different. In my imagination, this technology was a faceless product like a hammer or a chainsaw. Complicated, but just a thing you buy off the shelf and then use.
I didn't imagine it having a bunch of apps and notifications. I didn't imagine it becoming bigger with non-techies. I didn't imagine it becoming capitalized to death.
Now, I don't want any of it. I'm hyper aware of the many dark patterns employed against people to trick them into wanting things that do not enrich them in any way. I can't watch a simple program with my four year old without him being exposed to multiple layers of advertising along the way, because there doesn't exist a single streaming service that just lets you ask for what you want to watch and watch that thing.
*shouts at clouds*
On iOS there's a setting under Accessibility > Display & Text Size called "Differentiate Without Color" which helps with this. I also turn on "Increase Contrast" and "On/Off Labels" for toggle inputs.
+1 to this, it's amazing how terribly noisy some websites and apps feel in color after getting used to greyscale!
I found that there were apps that I always needed color enabled for (e.g. Photos & Maps). The iOS Shortcuts app can automate this via app open/close triggers.
I am on Android (and an old version of that too), so sadly I do not have that option.
My wife runs iOS and have experimented with greyscale before, I may suggest this to her. With maps I find I rarely need colour, but I also rarely use maps to get around.
Assuming "maps" means Google maps, the main thing my mom and I use it for is to check the traffic filter, which displays it via color. It uses the typical green to red scale, with really bad traffic being a dark red that borders on brown. Not sure how clear/obvious the differences would be in grayscale.
...also I just realized this is really bad for colorblind people. And apparently there are no settings in the app to adjust for that. Yikes.
Fair, I almost never use the traffic filter as traffic is not bad in my city and I bike most places so I rarely check the traffic filter. Normally when I use maps it is for figuring out roughly where something is, then I make my own route to get there.
Yeah, it is surprising how much of apps use only colour without any other options, which is quite bad for accessibility. I mentioned in my post, both Tildes and Three Cheers have this issue for new comments (although that is a minor thing).
Mostly we just check it if traffic seemed more backed up than usual. It's a good way to figure out if there's been an accident, and decide if we should just divert to another road or stick it out. Or just get an idea of how screwed we are if we're on the interstate past the point of no return.
I'm just surprised Google hasn't added colorblind options given their massive size. I get that it can be an afterthought for smaller devs, but at a company that size and with how long Maps has been around, it has to be on their radar. It seems like a relatively easy feature to implement since there's so many potential ways to do it: offer alternative palettes, change the saturation and values so they're noticeably different even in grayscale, replace the colors with some black-and-white pattern like the ones some printed bar graphs use, etc.
The "Night Mode" is only available on newer Android versions, but the developer options method works on older versions as well https://www.androidinfotech.com/monochrome-grayscale-display-android/.
For context on what "newer versions" entails, "Wind Down mode" with greyscale at bedtime was introduced in Android 9 Pie in 2018, and greyscale was added to the general color correction settings in Android 12 in 2021. So for anyone reading this who wasn't sure whether their version of Android was new enough, these options are almost definitely available to you unless you are deliberately running a much-older version of Android.
So I told my wife about this since she is running iOS, and it has been helpful for her in the past few days in setting it up. Her problem was she would disable it for camera or photos and then not turn it back on. This has helped her a bit. Her only major issue right now is she wants messages to be in greyscale, but when she opens a photo in messages for colour to turn on, but she has not found a solution for that yet.
Tagging @talklittle for the Three Cheers suggestion, although there's a chance someone has mentioned this in previous discussions.
I mentioned it on a Three Cheers thread before. I feel like it is not worth fixing for my own use, but beneficial for accessibility. I will also tag @Deimos since it is an issue with the website as well.
Thanks for the insights! It gave me the jolt to try it out.
On iOS, you can automate this so it happens when you should be in bed sleeping instead of playing on your phone. Settings -> Accessibility -> Color Filters (set to grayscale).
Create a Shortcut that sets color filters to "on". Create an Automation that triggers at your bedtime that runs the Shortcut. Make sure to disable requiring confirmation or a notification that it's run. Create a Shortcut setting color filters to "off" and a corresponding Automation that runs at just before you normally wake up.
Hopefully this helps me use my phone less when I should be sleeping!
I appreciate the instructions! I set this up for myself too.
Interested to see how it goes.
This is exactly what I do. it really does make a difference in how much I want to use my phone at night.
I have my phone to switch to grayscale when Do Not Disturb turns on at 10:00 p.m. and turns off when Do Not Disturb switches off the next day.
You can also manually add a color toggle to Control Center and have more manual, fine grained control over it.
Thanks for the tip. The idea sounded nice, but not having color when using the camera sounded like a deal breaker. That was pretty easy to configure with that method to have color when using the Camera or Photos apps, and then grayscale otherwise.
You can also automate "Bedtime Mode" to apply a black-and-white filter on Android as well! At least on my Pixel, go to Settings > Modes, then select Bedtime (there are also other modes you can tweak here, like Do Not Disturb, Driving, and Sleeping). Once you're changing a certain mode's settings, scroll down and click "Display settings." One of the options will be to turn on grayscale while in this mode (along with other options like switching to dark mode, turning off the always on display, etc.)
I think a straight-up toggle is also possible on Android, but I haven't tried that myself so I can't give instructions lol.
On my Pixel, once I set up greyscale mode, I found that it was in my "Modes" option in the pull-down quick option menu that previously was just for turning on Do Not Disturb. It makes it easy to toggle when I do need color, though I haven't found it necessary yet. Greyscale photos of my dog wearing a tragic expression are even better than before.
oh, handy! I'm fine with color during the day and greyscale at bedtime rn, but good to know that it's relatively easy if I decide to commit to fulltime greyscale
It probably will. When you are not used to it, it is a big difference so using it only at night has the potential to disrupt your usage.
Thanks for mentioning this. I just turned it on, and it's just as usable while being a little calmer? I'll keep it on for now and see how it is.
Calmer is a very good way of describing it, especially after my experience of turning on colour for a few tasks this weekend, and it just felt busy. It will take a bit to adjust, so I would recommend committing to keeping it on for a few days before making a decision.
Thanks for the general suggestion. I don't especially need it to make my phone less appealing (frankly, I hate my phone in a lot of ways), but /u/MimicSquid's thought that it makes it calmer sounds good to me. I might give it a try. I might think about what apps lose functionality without color or I might just jump in and see how it goes.
If apps lose functionality, if you are on iOS, others mentioned in this thread that the shortcuts app can help automate it toggling on/off when specific apps are launched
This was a fun way to learn about an apparently quite long lasting bug in Graphene wherein you cannot disable your last system visual change
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/10240-color-correction-mode-activation-bug-and-workaround/
I was having my kid decide which place to eat between a few options when we were out and about, and having all pictures of the food I'm grayscale kind of put them off the dinner plan entirely.
Tagging everyone who said they were going to try this out, to hear what it has been like for them the past week or so.
@MimicSquid, @gary, @kfwyre, @userexec, @YoRHaOS,
For those who tried it, did you keep using it past the initial day or two? Has it helped in getting your phone usage closer to what you want it to be? Any unexpected benefits or drawbacks?
I haven't turned off the nightly automation yet, so I must feel like there's a chance I'm deriving some benefits from it. What I've noticed is that it's coinciding with me spending more time on other devices (Steam Deck, headphones) during bedtime instead of my phone. Could it be that my phone being less appealing is pushing me towards those devices? Possibly, or possibly a coincidence. I'm going to keep it going a while longer and see.
Did not realize that reading text would also be more annoying! Greyscale combined with my nightly yellow tint seems to make a weird effect on text.
I like it. It genuinely does make the phone less stimulating. I'm only using it at night, and set up shortcuts to turn it on and off automatically.
It definitely has more of an impact on visual media than text -- I still stayed up reading Tildes one night while it was on. (Stop being so interesting, y'all!)
I plan on keeping it on, and I expect I'll keep it that way indefinitely. I don't really see a downside to having it on at night.
I did add a toggle for it to my iPhone's Control Center for convenience or "just in case,' but I haven't had to use it yet. I also learned that the filter applies to what you see on your screen only (on iOS). I took and sent a screenshot to someone while it was on, and I learned the next day when I looked back at it that the screenshot was still in full color.
Glad to hear it has helped you. Yeah, I find text still works well, so in a sense it has just generally shifted some of my media consumption to be more text oriented. Which I guess is kind of a good thing, but also makes me question why do we assign the value that text media is better for you to consume?
For me it’s about the quality of the text. reddit and YouTube comments are text but they tend to be, generally speaking, devoid of much substance.
Text with more effort put into it though is effectively someone sharing their thinking with you. I think that’s really valuable.
This is definitely possible through images and video as well, but not usually in the kinds of content that people mindlessly scroll (myself included).
I've kept using it, no downsides. I have a quick toggle for viewing images, though I don't do that often.
Well, it was an interesting experiment, but not for me. Reading in greyscale mode actually hurt my eyes: the text felt blurry. I guess the way it dims page backgrounds as well as the text makes it harder for my eyes to read. It's a shame, because it seemed like it might make my phone feel more like an e-reader, which would be amazing.
I will say it takes an adjustment period that you may not have just fully gotten used to it, but also sounds like you had other issues that I have not experienced. Especially if your phone and apps have busier backgrounds, I could see readability becoming an issue. Glad to hear you tried it though.
I have been trying this for the past few days and it's been surprisingly nice? I truly notice that my phone is less distracting. Especially when I focus on it for a while, when I stop using it and have stuff with color in my focus again, it's a weird but nice feeling.
As a middle ground, in iOS I set the grayscale option to about 1/6 the slider, so that there would still be color, but they are much more muted. One thing I notice is how aggressive the colors of app icons are in general.
It also reminds me that YouTube channels targeting children abuse those colors - I babysit for relatives sometimes and the colors on Cocomelon videos are so aggressive it's nearly nauseating, but it captures the baby's attention like a drug.
Maybe I missed it, but did you say if you'll continue to keep grayscale on? Forever?
I tried this a while ago and realized that during times where I WANT to use my phone guilt-free, it was very annoying. I eventually compromised by turning grayscale on only at bedtime. It's a good compromise for me.
I will occasionally turn colour on for specific tasks, but for the most part keep it permanently on. Also, my current phone is just temporary while waiting for my new phone comes in which has an eInk screen. So I will be forced to always have my phone on greyscale when that comes in.
Having seen this post when it originally hit the press, I decided to give it a go!
A bit about my phone habits:
My goals:
So far, grayscale has helped with 1 and 2, and so far I've gotten used to it and primarily keep it on unless I am watching something that struggles without color. The accessibility hover button makes it easy to quickly toggle off and on. It's a nice balance until a website or app doesn't support or consider users using color correction.
The last bullet point I actually ended up trying a new app launcher called Minimalist Phone that I'm testing to help with bullets 1-3 that also has some built in per-app color correction enablement.
Overall, a great little experiment I'm feeling has helped me pull back from my usage (while not excessive), I feel can always be improved by being conscious of and to try to modify my environment to keep things on a healthy curve.
Thanks for starting this little journey for me!
I've been doing this for about a week now. It does feel more pleasant and less distracting without all the abundant color in typical apps or sites. The only apps I've had functional issues with are Three Cheers and Google Maps.
Anecdotally, I've seen basically zero power consumption difference on a Pixel 8 Pro, how about you OP? I wouldn't think there'd be any difference on an OLED screen since it would just normalize the luminance across all the subpixels, not providing much (if any) difference in overall brightness.
Since I am currently on a loaner phone and so did not get a feel for battery life before turning on greyscale, I do not have a sense on battery performance for me. However, my guess is that battery life is not changed with greyscale, since it is still emitting the same brightness, which tends to be the biggest battery drain. The reason e-Ink displays (the common comparison for greyscale displays) get good battery life is that it is fundamentally a different screen technology and only consumes energy when changing the screen.
I've seen people say that switching their phone to greyscale helped them use it less and I'm so happy to hear that it works for some folks, but I honestly don't think color is the real issue for me, it's the apps, especially social media that are designed to keep you hooked with endless content. Greyscale might reduce some visual stimulation, but it doesn't change the addictive design of those apps.
Personally, I've installed a fully customizable OS and I've personally picked out all the colors to match my wallpaper, phone case, and overall vibe. You can even change the size of the icons, texts and some buttons on menus. It actually makes my phone feel more personal and intentional to use.
At least from my experience it has helped a lot to be more mindful of which apps you let take up your time and attention. Also I know this might not work for everyone, but for me, visual expression is really important, I think I'd honestly feel a bit down without it :P.
I agree that it's not the color that's the problem per se, but in my experience from having it on at bedtime it does help calm you down and ever so slightly feel less engaged by that endless wall of content. It makes it just that little bit easier to say "nah, I'm too tired" and stop the scroll, and sometimes that little bit is all you need.
Totally fair, and actually makes a lot of sense. I can see how greyscale at night could help reduce that overstimulating, "just one more video" feeling, especially when you're already tired. This kind of stuff is so personal, and it's cool to hear how different people approach it or how others may find it useful!
...i find that watching old silent films has that effect on me even moreso than reading text; it shifts my perception from active to passive mode, makes it easier for my mind to wander from structured thought into hallucination...
One of the things I briefly mentioned in my post, is that it is not the only thing I have done. I have also excessively trimmed down the apps on my phone. I think the trimmed down apps has been as big if not a bigger impact on my phone usage. Especially since I no longer have YouTube on my phone, which would have probably caused me to turn off greyscale more. My post was more so inspired by realizing how much of a difference it makes, because I was a bit overwhelmed this weekend when I had my phone in colour for an extended period of time.
Ah, I see, thanks for expanding on that! Sounds like you've built a really solid system for yourself by combining both approaches. I might not use greyscale myself, but I totally get how the mix of minimal apps + reduced visual stimulation could be really powerful together!
I also keep my phone in grayscale mode, primarily because I use it for reading books/messaging, and color it's rarely an issue.
While it can be annoying for some apps that use color for context, Android's accessibility shortcut allows me to quickly toggle color back on when needed.
Overall, I don't see myself doomscrolling content anymore, but that requires more self-control than changing the color.
Yeah, greyscale is not the final solution that curbs phone usage, but is a tool that helps curb usage alongside others.
I'm trying to test this, but it is not so easy as I'm in a bit of a slump at the moment (two understatements makes one overstatement!)...
What has been working a little better is to set up several "Modes" (GrapheneOS - Android 15) that automatically set the screen to grayscale... For now I have one for every hour between 06-24, plus one for 23 to 07. This also works as a nudge to put my phone down or at least notice what I'm doing.