Grayscale

Every so often, I procrastinate on my phone more than usual. I check sites that I know I have just checked to see if there is anything new, such as Hacker News and The Guardian. I check my notifications without hearing a sound indicative of a notification (I have disabled notifications on almost all non-messaging apps.) I start to feel restless and wonder: why am I doing this?

I learned that one of my colleagues has grayscale enabled on their phone last year. The display shows only grey colours. I decided to give this a go last night to see how I would feel about having non-grey colours disabled. My phone now feels different. Applications are no longer as vibrant as they once were. The features that would draw me into an application, such as the coloured ring around a profile on Instagram Stories indicative of a new post, are no longer prominent to the same degree. The red colour of notifications has been relegated to a grey colour largely indistinguishable from other features on the display.

I have set myself a challenge to use greyscale mode on my phone for a week. My goal is to reduce usage of my phone and stop procrastinating to the degree that I have been over the last few days. If the experience proves valuable, I shall leave greyscale mode enabled. I will report back in a week to share my progress.