Can turning your phone to grayscale make you less addicted to it? It’s a concept that I came across when I was mindlessly surfing the internet (yes, on my phone) that I hadn’t considered before. All the content would still be there, so how different could it really be? Wouldn’t the lack of color be annoying? I wanted to find out for myself.

I tried setting my phone to grayscale for 24 hours and screenshotted everything I noticed along the way.

I set it to grayscale around 5:00 p.m. on a Monday, a day where I work as an art lab assistant from 5:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. This job essentially entails me sitting at a desk and making sure that the art students who use the lab get help if they need it and don’t steal our computers.

So exciting, I know.

Obviously, this job is a great time to get work done but its also a prime time for potential phone usage. So I set it to grayscale, went to the home menu, and saw this:

My first reaction? "Trash. This phone is trash now." I felt like I was using a first generation iPhone. As you can imagine, it took a lot more focus to use an app, because my brain couldn't use color recognition.

A few minutes later I received a Snapchat notification. I opened the app, clicked the picture message and realized the first real problem with using grayscale full time: pictures.

The picture that was sent to me was of one-pan grilled chicken, green beans, and potatoes:

Yeah, I was very VERY unsettled by this picture. I only knew what it was because the friend who sent it told me. I learned that day that color is what makes food, food.

The rest of my shift was pretty uneventful for this study because I was working a lot on my class work. I mean REALLY working on my class work with more focus than I usually have. This was either because I was stressed or because using my phone was boring.

Before bed, I usually watch videos on my phone for a while before I actually sleep. This was comical for me because the grayscale made videos 10 times more dramatic, until I got to a recipe video. The video was showing me how to make "Mermaid Lemonade" but it just looked like cute murky water.

The next morning as I walked to class, I received a FaceTime call from my mom. I answered the call to her walking through my house, frantic because she thought someone had broken in and was still in the house. It turned out to be a series of coincidences but it was beyond dramatic to watch the events unfold in black and white.

When it was finally time to set my phone back to color, I almost forgot that the screen wasn't supposed to be grayscale. All the color hurt my eyes at first. I honestly hadn't realized my phone background was blue before.

All in all I did notice that I used my phone less during the experience. Probably because it took a lot more focus to navigate it without color cues. If you aren't a huge picture taker then you may have more success with the grayscale challenge.

Also as a side note, if you do decide to try going gray, all the screenshots you take actually come out in color. It makes sense but it was unexpected.