Change Your Screen to Grayscale to Combat Phone Addiction
2 min read
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Former Design Ethicist at Google and founder of the non-profit Time Well Spent Tristan Harris has been making the rounds lately, talking about how technology is engineered to be addictive and hijack our attention. He’s pretty persuasive, comparing the lure of your phone to the that of a slot machine.
Most of the time, you check your phone and there’s nothing interesting-no notifications, just the same old apps staring back at you. But sometimes checking your phone is rewarding -you get an amusing text, a flurry of likes, an email containing good news. This hit is satisfactory enough to keep you returning, checking your phone compulsively for another dopamine jolt.
To combat phone addiction, Harris suggests enabling grayscale on your phone. It might not cure your addiction completely, but certainly Instagram and Snapchat are going to be a lot less appealing in black and white than they are in technicolor.
Former Design Ethicist at Google and founder of the non-profit Time Well Spent Tristan Harris has been making the rounds lately, talking about how technology is engineered to be addictive and hijack our attention. He’s pretty persuasive, comparing the lure of your phone to the that of a slot machine.
Most of the time, you check your phone and there’s nothing interesting-no notifications, just the same old apps staring back at you. But sometimes checking your phone is rewarding -you get an amusing text, a flurry of likes, an email containing good news. This hit is satisfactory enough to keep you returning, checking your phone compulsively for another dopamine jolt.
To combat phone addiction, Harris suggests enabling grayscale on your phone. It might not cure your addiction completely, but certainly Instagram and Snapchat are going to be a lot less appealing in black and white than they are in technicolor.
