Experiment - Turning my phone on Grayscale for 1 week

Hypothesis (or Question)

I think turning my phone on grayscale (i.e. literally black and white) will help reduce my screen time and break the dopamine addiction I have with my phone.

Why It Matters

• I spend an inordinate amount of time on phone - in fact back in university my friends always joked that if they lost my attention for a few moments I would reflexively whipt the phone out for a scroll. I've since made some inroads into reducing my screen time - things like a). not working from home and b). using Opal to block my screen time have been very helpful, buts it's hard to breakthrough that plateau.
• Distractions and context switching - my phone draws my attention like the One ring does to Gollum - as a pharmacist and operator this is a big source of distraction and increases my context switching burden affecting my performance and concentration.
• Deep work - the opportunity cost of using my phone a lot is deep work (or deep relaxation etc) - I guess you could say presence.

The Plan

For the next 7 days I will have my phone on grayscale the entire time, and I will measure its effect on screen time (measured by iOS) at the end of the week.

• Duration: 1 week
• Method: Phone on grayscale for entire week. See here how to turn your phone to grayscale.
• Measurement: iOS screen time

Observations / Data

How did it go?

• Struggled when showing photos to people - turns out everything looks shit in B&W
• Surprisingly hard to use some apps - e.g. Maps - Which turn am I taking they all look highlighted.
• It's a bit depressing looking at stuff in B&W
• Noticed it did make me have no desire to use apps like Instagram - X (Twitter) still okay though
• Most of my use Whatsapp/podcasts/ breathing apps/ notes - unaffected

Any quantifiable results?

Conclusion

• I enjoyed a nice 14% reduction in screen time - Cool! Was expecting more but cool!
• While this did work living life with my phone on grayscale all the time is kinda depressing. So I don't think I have in on constantly.

Action items (continue, modify, or scrap?).

• I'm going add an iPhone automation that when I get to work my phone changes to grayscale automatically.
• Turn phone to grayscale when doing a deep work session as per my deep work checklist

Related thoughts:

I've been thinking about this tweet a lot, especially leaving your phone in another room while I work.

While I will probably do this as another experiment I wonder is there anything to be said about having phone in grayscale for the morning or until main task of the day is done...

Letting this one stew