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There’s one thing that almost every Android and iPhone owner has in common: we all wish we used our phones less. There are countless methods for decreasing screen time, but they’re often convoluted. I’ll show you one simple trick that gets the job done.
“Digital Wellbeing” came into focus in 2018 when both Apple and Google added features for building healthy phone usage habits. The software suites allow for tracking and managing screen time, blocking distractions, and making your phone less appealing.
As time has gone on, these features have stagnated. After all, it’s not exactly advantageous for a phone maker to get people to use their phones less. People also need to take the initiative to set up and stick with the restrictions they put on themselves. In other words, if it’s not easy, it doesn’t happen. But there’s one “Digital Wellbeing” that’s both very easy and very effective: Grayscale.
What is Grayscale on iPhone and Android?
Grayscale is a feature that puts your phone’s screen in a totally desaturated black-and-white mode. It’s like the reverse of The Wizard of Oz. You go from bright, vibrant Oz to flat, muted Kansas–and if that sounds awful, that’s exactly the point.
Those app icons that were carefully designed to catch your eye? They become muted, indistinguishable blobs. The photos and videos that once popped with life turn into drab, monochrome versions of themselves. Even the simple act of scrolling through social media loses its allure.
This works because our brains are wired to respond to color. It evokes emotions, guides our attention, and makes things generally more engaging. By removing color, you’re essentially taking away a key element of the user interface. Developers and graphic designers spend countless hours optimizing the colors within their apps to make them as appealing as possible. When you strip them away, you are literally removing the appeal.
Naturally, all of this tends to make people use their phones less. The lack of color simply makes it a more unenjoyable experience. If you’re lucky enough to be able to see color, are you going to waste your time looking at a black-and-white screen? No, you’re going to get in and out as quickly as possible.
How to Turn On Grayscale on iPhone
On the iPhone, the Grayscale feature is buried in the Accessibility settings under “Color Filters.” Here’s how to find it and enable it.
If you don’t want to go through these steps every time–and I highly recommend you don’t–you may set up an Accessibility Shortcut:
How to Turn On Grayscale on Android
For Android devices, the process can depend on which specific phone you have. I’ll show the steps for Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy devices.
Google Pixel
To make it easier to toggle on and off, you can add a “Color Correction” toggle to the Quick Settings.
Samsung Galaxy
You also have the option to make it easier by adding a “Color Correction” toggle to the Quick Settings menu.
As I said, it’s an extremely simple trick, but you may be surprised by how effective it is at making your phone less enticing. The next time you feel like you’re checking your phone too often, give Grayscale a shot.
