How to reduce smartphone addiction with grayscale mode

A simple hack to cut screen time and improve focus, backed by science.

One of the simplest ways to reduce smartphone usage is activating grayscale mode, i.e. removing screen colors.

All smartphones offer this feature, making it easy for anyone to try.

How to turn your phone screen to grayscale?
For iPhone users:

• Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters

• Toggle Color Filters on and select Grayscale

If you don’t have an iPhone, here for the full guide.

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Why reduce screen time?

Excessive smartphone use has evidence-based downsides, including:

• Disrupted sleep

• Worse reading comprehension

• Mental laziness

• Anxiety, depression and other mental health issues

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Why use grayscale mode?

Grayscale mode - originally developed for colorblind people - reduces smartphone usage by making screens less visually stimulating, without affecting functionality.

Imagine scrolling through TikTok or Instagram in black and white. Suddenly, those bright colors lose their pull.

This is still me, but in grayscale.

There is evidence that bright and saturated colors are more stimulating and pleasurable than grayscales¹, and that people reported a lack of enjoyment, and a decline in the desire to use their phones when in grayscale mode².

Besides, smartphone screen time has been found to negatively correlate with productivity³, and even the mere presence of one's smartphone can cause distraction and reduce cognitive capacity, as I have extensively discussed in this other newsletter.

Definitely less appealing in grayscale

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Experimenting: I tried grayscale mode for 7 days. These were the results.

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An interesting research paper on grayscale

A study examined grayscale mode’s impact on both (i) objective smartphone behavior and (ii) subjective digital well-being.

📊 How it worked - Participants’ smartphone use was tracked for two weeks:

• Week 1: Normal use (baseline)

• Week 2: Grayscale mode

Most participants (73%) had never used grayscale before, and 85% wanted to reduce phone use.

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🔬 Key Findings

📉 Grayscale reduced screen time by ~20 minutes per day (a 7% decrease).

• The reduction was similar across all app types (visual apps like Instagram vs. text-based apps like WhatsApp).

• No change in phone unlock frequency, meaning people checked their phones just as often but used them for shorter periods.

🔹 Subjective results:

• Participants felt more in control of their smartphone use.

• They perceived their usage as significantly lower, even though unlock frequency did not change.

• More interestingly, these effects strengthened over time, suggesting grayscale’s impact grows the longer it’s used⁴.

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💭 Conclusive thoughts

Grayscale mode works. Users find it easier to disengage from their phones, react less to notifications, and spend less time monitoring their screens.

As mentioned, phone checking frequency did not change (i.e. people just used their phones for a shorter duration of time), and this is a confirmation that checking behavior often happens subconsciously.

That said, a 20-minute reduction does not feel like a big improvement, when the average smartphone screen time is almost 5 hours per day.

More interestingly, the results suggest that a longer use of grayscale mode might yield even stronger results.

A one-week trial may not be enough.

To see meaningful change (a 30-50% reduction in screen time), it may be worth keeping grayscale mode on until smartphone use drops significantly.

Difficult to do?
Yes⁵.

Worth it?
Absolutely.

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See you all next Sunday 🗓️
Thanks,
Giacomo

1. Effects of color on emotions

2. True colors: Grayscale setting reduces screen time in college students

3. Source

4. “Reactibility” refers to the sensitivity and responsiveness to smartphone cues, such as notifications.

5. For example, half of the sample would never (31.3%) or rarely (20.0%) use grayscale again, showing that the way to “freedom” is long and difficult.