One common psychological trick addictive social media uses is high saturation color, as it causes our monkey brains to enjoy it slightly more. This is monotone and I’d assume that’s a relevant feature point
That, and at night a LED device is literally putting a flashlight in direct line of sight, which does not help in making one sleepy (even with night mode stuff cutting some blue light it's still a flashlight, albeit tinted) so more potential for extended late hours doomscrolling. OLED is kind of better than LCD but still.
Comparatively eink relies on ambient lighting (backlighted ones have it backwards in that regard)
On Pixel phone, there is a Digital Wellbeing setting that can turn your screen into Greyscale mode during bedtime. It is said to discourage the use of social networks and helps you sleep better.
I'd recommend giving grayscale mode a try not only during bedtime, but all the time! My Pixel has been set this way for a couple months and it has decreased my mindless phone usage by simply making the phone more boring overall, without any new device or major sacrifices.
I became concerned that I'd turn it off when I temporarily needed color and forget to turn it back on, so instead I used Tasker to listen for L-R shake action and make that temporarily disable grayscale mode for 20 secs (in case I specifically decide I want to look at color in a photo or disambiguate something from grayscale). Works decently well, I can explain the Tasker steps if anyone else is interested.
On my Pixel using GrapheneOS, I can go into Accessibility settings and enable gesture support for toggling Grayscale support, without the need for Tasker. I'm unsure how other Android ROMs stack up but I imagine stock Pixel has this setting.
It's a great feature, just swipe up from the bottom with two fingers whenever I need color.
I'm _almost_ certain that comes with any Android ROM from 9.0 up as a standard accessibility setting. All my Samsung devices have had it for a few years.
> used Tasker to listen for L-R shake action and make that temporarily disable grayscale mode for 20 secs
Wonderful
I am using gray scale on personal phone permanently, but avoided that on work phone as I might need to discern color in some work documents or screenshares.
What you describe seems like a perfect solution but does it work on all Android phones?
If you could throw some more light on the steps ... appreciate that!
I do think it will work on non-Pixel phones, but you do need to enable Secure Settings for Tasker, which probably can be locked down by Mobile Device Management or other admin control methods that a work device could have.
I've been doing the same for a few months, as I wanted to get an eink phone but wasn't sure how annoying it'd be. Although there's some limitations, like charts or video calls, I got used to it quite quickly in the end. Really recommended, you can just enable it in display settings (at least on my Samsung).
I granted it via ADB using the command line listed, but the other method with app might work too. If you don't have ADB, It's very easy to install by just downloading the right sdk for your OS, and you run the included ADB binary via command line while your phone is plugged in via USB, and USB debugging is enabled (which is an android developer setting).
Set your Android accessibility color correction type to grayscale if you don't have that already. The below Tasker action simply toggles it off and on.
Tasker config is-
Configure a Shake Left-Right event trigger (I recommend sensitivity 'Very Low' and Duration 'Long' to avoid accidental triggers)
Set the Collision Handling on the task gear/settings to "Abort Existing Task", so that you can extend the color lifetime by shaking the phone again.
Of course, once you have this action in Tasker, you can use any trigger to turn it on or off, like opening a particular app, turning it on when you are only at home or away, etc.
Works pretty well for me, there is one slight issue where some type of android display layout refresh occurs when the color toggle happens, which sometimes refreshes the interface you are on in a slightly annoying way. I tolerate it, it's ok, maybe setting a longer wait period would make this occur less often.
If these steps don't work / too confusing, try using the really great accessibility gesture support setting mentioned in a reply, instead or in addition: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40462366
FYI John Dalton was a scientist who pioneered color blindness research among many other fields, so his name is everywhere in color correction settings apparently.
Ah man about a year ago my windows went black and white and I didn’t know why and couldn’t figure it out, I must have pressed this.
Had to reboot to fix it.
Most devices let you enable a monochrome filter and optionally invert the image somewhere in the accessibility settings, for what it's worth. You don't need a special device just for that.
For starters, it doesn't come with the whole "light show", it's black and white.
"Minimalist" types often suggest turning your smartphone into B&W mode (usually an accessibility setting), precisely to reduce temptation to watch videos, social media, and such.
Elsewhere in this thread I see comments that mention "low distraction", "calmer", and something about iPhones frying kids' brains.
This all looks like snobbery to me, based on the association of monochrome paper with novels and writing and intellectual pursuits. In the 18th century we were scared that novels would fry the brains of young women, but times have changed and now it's iPhones that are sinful, and monochrome displays are virtuous, apparently.
I think I might be going off the idea of e-ink, as a result. But my particular interest is nostalgia for the illustrators of the 80s. I would like to see a full-color portrait format 16-inch e-ink display or tablet. Preferably as addicting as possible, because outside of actual pharmacology that word just means "fun".
By way of an experiment - set your phone screen to black & white (in iOS, settings -> accessibility -> display -> color filters -> [on] -> grayscale, on android, settings -> accessibility -> color & motion -> color correction -> [on] -> grayscale), and leave it that way for a day of normal use. Then, turn it off, and note how you react to the change.
Folks aren't calling it calmer because they're trying to look erudite, they're calling it calmer because modern applications put a lot of work into capturing your attention, and color is one of the tools they use (quite aggressively) to do so. Disabling color on the device isn't some way to look snobbish, it's a way to reduce the number of ways the device and applications are attempting to grab your attention.
Since IIRC Shortcuts is actually pretty clunky, it's probably easier to use Control Center to toggle grayscale, which is possible after you add the control named "accessibility shortcuts" using {settings > control center}. That is what I use.
On iOS, you can also set up the “accessibility shortcut” (settings -> accessibility -> accessibility shortcut), which lets you triple-click the home button to enable it.
You can also create automations to turn grayscale back off for apps that need it. I have ones for maps, photos and whatsapp (since people send a lot of pics in my group). They run when the app is activated/deactivated.
I had no idea this was possible, wow, very cool! I turned this on and I’m going to try it out. I kind of love the idea of a grayscale screen and I had no clue I owned one already!
I suppose for some people this is an issue and they genuinely want a physical solution in order to stop habitually doing things they don't like, like Odysseus wanting to be tied to the mast to avoid the Sirens.
I can predict how my behavior would change if I tried this: I'd be pissed off because you'd ruined my game of Heroes III (1999). And Brogue would be slightly less pretty. Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead would be much the same, and news sites and coding wouldn't change much. So my reaction would just be "this is gloomy", it's not like I need freeing from a hypnotic spell.
Hmmm..the way you're arguing against makes it seem like you're being manipulated. Maybe you have an issue too?
If you don't want to use it then don't. I'm not even sure why you're in here arguing against it.
> People often believe that "other people can be persuaded, but not me. I’m the smart one. It’s only those other people over there that can’t control their thought."
> I'm not even sure why you're in here arguing against it.
To recap, somebody mentioned addiction, to colors presumably, as a reason to prefer a monochrome display, and I thought that was ridiculous. So I said so. People didn't react well.
I've read a little part of the article. I don't much like the giant tech and social media companies. However, when I come to phrases like this:
> hijacking of the human mind
> hooking kids to send messages back and forth
I can't bear to continue wading through it. This is just moral panic. A marginal effect of keeping an audience's attention - sometimes - for a little while - is exaggerated by people who (again, like me) dislike the big tech companies, and described like an actual addictive drug. This seems dishonest. But perhaps they actually believe it. No doubt there have been studies that tell them what they want to hear.
But yeah, moral panic, or maybe virtue signalling, or tribalism - something like that is going on here, and realism suffers, and I don't like that, so I said something. I don't know if anybody appreciated me saying something, because maybe it was off-message, but I'm saying it anyway. I'm not claiming to be super-smart, I'm generally a foolish person, and I'm getting a lot of veiled insults here, I suppose because I pissed on your oddly monochrome strawberries.
>To recap, somebody mentioned addiction, to colors presumably, as a reason to prefer a monochrome display, and I thought that was ridiculous.
Somebody mentioned addiction, not "to colors" but to regular content doomscrolling, smartphone overuse, and so on. And the idea was that a monochrome display of videos, social media apps, webpages, TikToks etc makes them less enticing (and thus helps with reducing their use).
This is not only far from ridiculous (then again, some find the idea of a round earth ridiculous too), but something that has both tried with reported success by tons of people, and also the subject of study:
True colors: Grayscale setting reduces screen time in college students
Yawn. You started off calling the use of greyscale "snobbery". Just because people use something you don't, doesn't make them snobs. Maybe if you were more open and honestly questioning, you wouldn't perceive "veiled insults", which I haven't noticed so far. Nice projection, buddy.
But, like I said, if you don't think it works, fine don't do. But when people explain why it works for them, don't diss them for using something that works.
Don't act like you're some perfect moral compass of everybody's experience. You started this thread with insults. And every comment you've made since includes them. Maybe grow up and accept that people like something _you've never tried before_.
Yes, just to reiterate: it's snobbery, I'm pretty sure. Do you think that's an insult? I could sugar-coat it: probably the snobs involved are lovely people, and I can't control their preferences. And I shouldn't have started mentioning insults, that kind of meta-comment is always a distraction. I see what I took to be a direct parody of me with "I'm the only smart one" was actually a quote from the tiresome hooks-in-your-brain article.
Again, I'd encourage you to actually give it a try. It's quick, and I think it would give you some insights into the things people are actually saying and why they're saying them.
>This all looks like snobbery to me, based on the association of monochrome paper with novels and writing and intellectual pursuits
You say it like it is a bad thing. It is associated with novels and writing and intellectual pursuits, because it's less suitable for video/graphics focused social media, videos, and games.
>but times have changed and now it's iPhones that are sinful, and monochrome displays are virtuous, apparently.
False analogy aside, we already know TVs and then smartphones are addictive in a way older media never were. We already have studies about that, and we already have statistics about the dire consequences on teenagers and adults in many metrics.
So, your argument is a little like saying:
"In the 1940s and 50s we were scared that weed would fry the brains of young kids, but times have changed and now it's meth that is dangerous, and weed is ok, apparently".
Well, meth is hella dangerous, and that's a fact, even if they overblew the danger of weed in the 1940s.
"We" being me, various studies, the US "surgeon general", statistics...
>But it's strange to extend that to "buy this device since its joyless monochrome display won't enthrall you"
I never proposed or said anything about "buying this device". I answered the parent and explained why such a device could help with smartphone overuse/doomscrolling issues.
In fact I even explained how switching your existing device to b&w is often recommended for this purpose (which obviously means ...you don't need "this device" for achieve this).
>unless you have a specific personal problem about compulsion.
Tons of people have specific personal problems about compulsion, especially when it comes to their social media use.
Seems like you're... defending the exploitation of compulsive behavior.
Most media platforms are designed to exploit the same behavioural patterns s gambling, and it makes perfect sense to be able to restrict the likelihood of undesirable possible intrusions. If you want to isolate the act of reading or doing anything else without the possibility of being drawn over to an endless stream of videos, seems like a joyful and practical move. Then if you want to watch a video, go do that deliberately, there's no reason not to attempt to exert more control over your own attention, if something like this helps.
Well no, I'm defending the enjoyment of colorful games. Or picture books, or comics. And I'm disputing the idea that compulsivity is prevalent and that it's beyond the power of the user to say "this is dumb, I'm stopping now" when the only way the app tries to exert control is via little colorful animations.
More realistically, I think it's irrational mindsets such as "I need the world to like me" (or something, don't ask me), or a gambler's deep-seated belief in being lucky, that are exploited. I do not think the little colorful animations, in of themselves, have a direct line to the impulse control of most people. And I don't think puritanism is the way forward. "Isolating" is odd, because if I open an ebook, it's in black and white and fills the screen, even if the same screen is capable of simulating a slot machine. So buying a screen that's incapable of doing anything else seems extreme ... well, IDK, I kind of like the way actual paper looks, it feels more immediate than a screen, but that's unrelated to what it can't do.
> Well no, I'm defending the enjoyment of colorful games. Or picture books, or comics.
Nobody is defending the opposite. In my case, I created automation with shortcuts to disable the great filter when I open some apps and to reenable it after I close them. Those apps are currently Photos, Camera, Smart Comic Reader. I could have added games without issue but I just don’t game on phone.
I love Colors (like any human). What I don’t love is being addicted to e.g. Reddit. And turning on greyscale works on this. Call it maybe placebo if you want but the result is there.
I think the deliberate enjoyment of those things is absolutely something to value, and maybe coloration only has a small role in incentivized passive scrolling through media, but I think it's a hell of a lot better to not shit where you eat. If you want to play games, use your game playing thing, don't put yourself in a position where game playing or YouTube is easily capable of competing with other material that's also valuable but not nearly as stimulating or chance oriented.
I think it's pretty common for people to spend hours a day on their phone doing absolutely nothing of true substance, because activities of substance require intention.
I used to think along these lines, then I had kids. I thought it was just appealing to kids, and then I realized they are just more obvious and transparent in what works.
>Well no, I'm defending the enjoyment of colorful games. Or picture books, or comics
Yes, because we were totally discussing the healthy enjoyment of those things, and not digital overuse and addictive behavior to social media and the like /s
>I'm disputing the idea that compulsivity is prevalent and that it's beyond the power of the user to say "this is dumb, I'm stopping now" when the only way the app tries to exert control is via little colorful animations.
Something else I resent is the extension of the word "healthy" beyond the realm of bodily health, into the weeds of psychology, where the meaning of it is more like "approved".
Let's imagine we're on a battleground. You're fighting to defend your nation. I'm on the side of the baddies and I want to take over your trench, so I come at you with ... a screen. It has a colorful, jiggling, sparkling, animated button that begs you to press it. You immediately start drooling, you grab the screen, you're incapacitated and my victory is easy, right?
Or would you in fact be able to resist the attraction of about 150 square centimeters of dancing pixels when it really mattered, showing that this whole trope of mind control and screen addiction is approximately, perhaps not completely but close to completely, hogwash? People have habits in the contexts of their routines of life, and they can feel bad and unproductive and guilty about those habits, but they maintain the habits anyway because it's basically OK and they have no invigorating disaster going on to make doing anything different really matter.
I agree with you that people tend to grossly overestimate the bad effects of a new technology. For example my kids cringe if they catch me or my wife looking at YouTube shorts. My son - that has complete, unlimited access to his gaming PC, installed a Firefox extension to block YouTube shorts. I think the problem will self-regulate at some point.
However I made my iPhone black and white as suggested by others and I love it, I believe I'll keep it like this for a few days because it looks so cool. We will see if it leads to less usage.
>For example my kids cringe if they catch me or my wife looking at YouTube shorts. My son - that has complete, unlimited access to his gaming PC, installed a Firefox extension to block YouTube shorts. I think the problem will self-regulate at some point.
Kids might cringe because it's "out of fashion", then go themselves watch even worse doomscrolling bait than YouTube shorts, like TikTok or whatever's next.
>I think I might be going off the idea of e-ink, as a result.
The main benefit of e-ink isn't what you mentioned in the post, imo, it is that it is great to read with in everything from direct sunlight to darkness, which is less straining for the eyes.
Having something mainly for reading is also a nice thing for us that easily get distracted away from that.
Yeah, it's still enticing me in that respect. Or even something beyond the practical: there would be a great aesthetic to it, a new kind of artistic experience, if a digital work was in full color and presented itself with reflected light, just like a book or a painting, where the white point was exactly the ambient white of a sheet of paper.
For one, images and videos are a lot less visually stimulating. Everything is in black and white, and though those all render fine, they're just not as interesting as they would be in full color. So instead of doomscrolling Youtube shorts, I find myself doing more reading, particularly of books since the epub reading experience is fantastic and causes much less eye strain.
