I Avoided This Simple Trick that Makes Phones Less Addictive

Photo by Moose Photos on Pexels

Anytime someone suggested trying grayscale, I’d bristle. Until my kid forced me to face the reality of how addictive screens are.

When I turned off the TV at 8 PM, expecting to go about our usual bedtime routine, he started a whine that rose into a wail.

I locked eyes with my husband. “That can’t be because we turned off the TV…can it?” He was only three months old.

Turns out it was.

It was no longer enough to turn him away or block his view with our palms. He was determined to tilt, thrash, and bend to see the screen. We had to stop talking about limiting his screen use and actually do it.

We cut back to one television episode per night after putting him to bed and decided we wanted to be better examples for him by spending less time on our phones too.

I’d heard repeatedly that grayscale made phones less addictive, but I was finally ready to try it. I only wish I’d made the switch sooner.

Why I Said No for So Long

The first time I heard about grayscale, I shook my head as if the podcaster could see me. I was stubbornly against anything that I thought would steal my joy. I knew social media was poisoning me, but in my mind, a colorful phone felt innocent, practical, and even necessary.

You’d think that as a digital detoxing veteran who broke up with Facebook and found a way to avoid the YouTube rabbit hole, I’d do anything to ditch my phone. But as someone who gets excited about art museums and pops of color, draining my phone of color felt like a punch to the gut.

I worried that photography, one of my creative outlets, would lose its luster and that photos I loved would look dull in simple tones of black and white.

I also do most online shopping on my phone. I had visions of ordering anything from t-shirts to picture frames and opening the box in horror to find they weren’t the color I expected.

But with a baby now watching my every move, I wasn’t willing to keep making excuses. I’d already cut back substantially on screen time, but I still found myself reaching for my phone instead of being fully present with him.

Once I looked my fears in the face, I had to admit that they were dramatic and unrealistic. Until I finally went into my settings, my brain was a constant loop of: What if it’s depressing? It’ll take too long.. What if I forget how to turn it off? What if it doesn’t change anything?

Turns out, my fears were just my brain’s way of avoiding change.

The Grayscale Experiment

Since I was done with digital detox challenges and wanted to make changes that would last, I didn’t set a deadline, I made grayscale my new reality, but I also gave myself permission to turn it off if I wanted to.

At first, I locked and unlocked my phone multiple times because it didn’t feel real. My already black and white lock-screen photo would deceive me into thinking nothing had changed, until I’d whoosh into my open phone screen to find the apps that used to be shouting for my attention with their bright logos and red notification badges were now quiet and muted.

With photos, I found that I liked the effect. Pictures of our little one that looked busy with colorful blankets and loud print pajamas became more pleasing to look at and put the focus back on our kid.

I even tested my online shopping fears by ordering some baby bibs without seeing their true colors — turns out the surprise was actually fun.

The only nuisances were using GPS for directions and radar for storm watching. It’s a lot harder to tell where your next turn is when everything is a similar shade of gray rather than a distinct blue route line.

Once I got over the initial shock of grayscale, my screen time decreased. I suddenly started forgetting my phone at home or almost leaving my phone at relatives houses. That might be alarming to you, but it got me excited. It meant the addiction had eased. I no longer felt like I would burst into flames if my phone wasn’t in my hand.

I can’t credit that effect entirely to grayscale since I also removed email and all social media apps (yes including Reddit and YouTube) from my phone, but it did make a difference.

The biggest shock that told me it was working came when I first turned grayscale off to see what one my photos looked like in color. It hurt my eyes looking at all the saturated colors and made me realize that my phone itself is designed to attract my attention, even when it has nothing to show me.

Everything from that satisfying “whoosh” when I unlock my screen to the attention demanding colors. I can’t control the whoosh, but I can control the colors. And there is scientific evidence to back up my experience.

The Science of Why It Works

There’s a reason color psychology is a core concept in marketing. It’s one of the most effective strategies for getting people to take action.

Research with over 1,000 participants found that red notifications create what scientists call “salience bias” — we focus on visually prominent items — and “urgency bias” — we do tasks that feel urgent even when they’re not actually important.

One study using brain wave monitoring showed that the color red literally captures our attention faster and triggers quicker responses. Former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris put it bluntly: “red is a trigger color” that tech companies use as an alarm signal to grab our focus.

So by switching to grayscale, it’s harder for your phone to dictate what you should focus on. It may not stop you from being derailed by notifications (which is why I recommend limiting them), but it does take some of their power away, which is supported by the research specifically on using grayscale.

A study of 161 college students found that switching to grayscale reduced their daily screen time by nearly 38 minutes. If we take the average screen use of 2 hours and 24 minutes, that’s a reduction of over 25 percent and more than 4 hours a week of reclaimed time.

Multiple studies have consistently shown reductions ranging from 20 to 50 minutes per day when people use grayscale for a week or longer.

Remember my fear about grayscale sucking the joy out of my life? Turns out I wasn’t entirely wrong. Interestingly, in the short time frame of the studies, people checked their phones just as often, but they stayed on them for less time. Which suggests that grayscale made phone use less rewarding.

Yet, despite their phones being less interesting, participants reported being just as happy and less stressed at the end of the experiment. So grayscale doesn’t suck the joy out of life, but it does reduce the addictive strength of phone use.

Grayscale is a simple switch that makes a big difference, but if we’re being honest, it doesn’t solve everything. It doesn’t prevent all the addictive tricks tech companies use to keep your eyes chained to your screen.

Like the fact that Facebook and Instagram send notifications randomly instead of all at once. It mimics the randomness of a slot machine and even in animals, rewards that are random are more motivating than consistent rewards.

How to Try it Yourself

Hopefully now you’re on board with at least trying it for a short period of time. Even if you just put your phone on grayscale for a few days, you’ll be startled by how vibrant your phone is when you turn color filters off.

Spending less time on your phone is only a few quick taps away:

On iPhone: Setting>Accessibility>Display & Text Size>Turn on color filters>Grayscale

On Android: two finger swipe from top > Pen icon > drag Grayscale icon into panel

On Samsung: Settings>Digital Wellbeing>Wind down

Relieved to be Wrong

Six months ago, if you told me draining my phone of color would not only effectively reduce my phone use but that I’d come to prefer and enjoy, I would have stared at you silently for an uncomfortable amount of time until you were forced to change the subject or make an excuse about needing to get home to your dog.

On it’s own, grayscale won’t magically turn you into a productive genius or someone who is so present that they look like they meditate for an hour a day, but it will reduce your phone use in a very short period of time. It’s now an essential tool in my Digital Freedom Coaching toolbox.

It doesn’t require you to download an app or use willpower to change your behavior. It’s simple and only takes a few seconds to setup. The biggest roadblock to trying it will be your mind’s excuses (like it was for me).

So if you’re still on the fence, I get it. I was too. But remember: It’s not permanent. You don’t have to do it forever. Just try it for 3 days and then tell me what you think. You might find that the real world is more vibrant when your screen isn’t flooded with saturated colors, brightness enhanced photos, and loud notification icons.