[card_zero]

Elsewhere in this thread I see comments that mention "low distraction", "calmer", and something about iPhones frying kids' brains.

This all looks like snobbery to me, based on the association of monochrome paper with novels and writing and intellectual pursuits. In the 18th century we were scared that novels would fry the brains of young women, but times have changed and now it's iPhones that are sinful, and monochrome displays are virtuous, apparently.

I think I might be going off the idea of e-ink, as a result. But my particular interest is nostalgia for the illustrators of the 80s. I would like to see a full-color portrait format 16-inch e-ink display or tablet. Preferably as addicting as possible, because outside of actual pharmacology that word just means "fun".

[roughly]

By way of an experiment - set your phone screen to black & white (in iOS, settings -> accessibility -> display -> color filters -> [on] -> grayscale, on android, settings -> accessibility -> color & motion -> color correction -> [on] -> grayscale), and leave it that way for a day of normal use. Then, turn it off, and note how you react to the change.

Folks aren't calling it calmer because they're trying to look erudite, they're calling it calmer because modern applications put a lot of work into capturing your attention, and color is one of the tools they use (quite aggressively) to do so. Disabling color on the device isn't some way to look snobbish, it's a way to reduce the number of ways the device and applications are attempting to grab your attention.

[idl8t3]

I created a shortcut to toggle grayscale for iOS. Try it out!

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/371d5ced520d40e984d626ae304...

[hollerith]

Since IIRC Shortcuts is actually pretty clunky, it's probably easier to use Control Center to toggle grayscale, which is possible after you add the control named "accessibility shortcuts" using {settings > control center}. That is what I use.

(And on Gnome, I use and recommend the following: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4012/gnome-bedtime/)

[roughly]

On iOS, you can also set up the “accessibility shortcut” (settings -> accessibility -> accessibility shortcut), which lets you triple-click the home button to enable it.

[StephenCanis]

Thank you so much for this! Not having to dig through the settings to toggle B&W makes it much more workable.

[zimpenfish]

You can also have the back tap (double or triple) run the accessibility shortcut.

I use triple-back for "grayscale" (because I found myself double-tapping the back accidentally all the time.)

[dash2]

You can also create automations to turn grayscale back off for apps that need it. I have ones for maps, photos and whatsapp (since people send a lot of pics in my group). They run when the app is activated/deactivated.

[adriand]

I had no idea this was possible, wow, very cool! I turned this on and I’m going to try it out. I kind of love the idea of a grayscale screen and I had no clue I owned one already!

[card_zero]

Just ignore them? Don't use manipulative apps?

I suppose for some people this is an issue and they genuinely want a physical solution in order to stop habitually doing things they don't like, like Odysseus wanting to be tied to the mast to avoid the Sirens.

I can predict how my behavior would change if I tried this: I'd be pissed off because you'd ruined my game of Heroes III (1999). And Brogue would be slightly less pretty. Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead would be much the same, and news sites and coding wouldn't change much. So my reaction would just be "this is gloomy", it's not like I need freeing from a hypnotic spell.

[ohmyiv]

Hmmm..the way you're arguing against makes it seem like you're being manipulated. Maybe you have an issue too?

If you don't want to use it then don't. I'm not even sure why you're in here arguing against it.

> People often believe that "other people can be persuaded, but not me. I’m the smart one. It’s only those other people over there that can’t control their thought."

https://www.wired.com/story/our-minds-have-been-hijacked-by-...

[card_zero]

> I'm not even sure why you're in here arguing against it.

To recap, somebody mentioned addiction, to colors presumably, as a reason to prefer a monochrome display, and I thought that was ridiculous. So I said so. People didn't react well.

I've read a little part of the article. I don't much like the giant tech and social media companies. However, when I come to phrases like this:

> hijacking of the human mind

> hooking kids to send messages back and forth

I can't bear to continue wading through it. This is just moral panic. A marginal effect of keeping an audience's attention - sometimes - for a little while - is exaggerated by people who (again, like me) dislike the big tech companies, and described like an actual addictive drug. This seems dishonest. But perhaps they actually believe it. No doubt there have been studies that tell them what they want to hear.

But yeah, moral panic, or maybe virtue signalling, or tribalism - something like that is going on here, and realism suffers, and I don't like that, so I said something. I don't know if anybody appreciated me saying something, because maybe it was off-message, but I'm saying it anyway. I'm not claiming to be super-smart, I'm generally a foolish person, and I'm getting a lot of veiled insults here, I suppose because I pissed on your oddly monochrome strawberries.

[coldtea]

>To recap, somebody mentioned addiction, to colors presumably, as a reason to prefer a monochrome display, and I thought that was ridiculous.

Somebody mentioned addiction, not "to colors" but to regular content doomscrolling, smartphone overuse, and so on. And the idea was that a monochrome display of videos, social media apps, webpages, TikToks etc makes them less enticing (and thus helps with reducing their use).

This is not only far from ridiculous (then again, some find the idea of a round earth ridiculous too), but something that has both tried with reported success by tons of people, and also the subject of study:

True colors: Grayscale setting reduces screen time in college students

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03623319.2020.1...

Color me calm: Grayscale phone setting reduces anxiety and problematic smartphone use

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-021-02020-y

Suffering from problematic smartphone use? Why not use grayscale setting as an intervention! – An experimental study

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245195882...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245195882...

Billions spent in making content more addictive - including the use of color to drive emotion and provide dopamine hits.

>But yeah, moral panic, or maybe virtue signalling, or tribalism

Or <insert other random middlebrow dismissal term>

[ohmyiv]

Yawn. You started off calling the use of greyscale "snobbery". Just because people use something you don't, doesn't make them snobs. Maybe if you were more open and honestly questioning, you wouldn't perceive "veiled insults", which I haven't noticed so far. Nice projection, buddy.

But, like I said, if you don't think it works, fine don't do. But when people explain why it works for them, don't diss them for using something that works.

Don't act like you're some perfect moral compass of everybody's experience. You started this thread with insults. And every comment you've made since includes them. Maybe grow up and accept that people like something _you've never tried before_.

[card_zero]

Yes, just to reiterate: it's snobbery, I'm pretty sure. Do you think that's an insult? I could sugar-coat it: probably the snobs involved are lovely people, and I can't control their preferences. And I shouldn't have started mentioning insults, that kind of meta-comment is always a distraction. I see what I took to be a direct parody of me with "I'm the only smart one" was actually a quote from the tiresome hooks-in-your-brain article.

[roughly]

Again, I'd encourage you to actually give it a try. It's quick, and I think it would give you some insights into the things people are actually saying and why they're saying them.

[coldtea]

>it's not like I need freeing from a hypnotic spell.

Well, that's exactly what many social media addicts do need.

[coldtea]

>This all looks like snobbery to me, based on the association of monochrome paper with novels and writing and intellectual pursuits

You say it like it is a bad thing. It is associated with novels and writing and intellectual pursuits, because it's less suitable for video/graphics focused social media, videos, and games.

>but times have changed and now it's iPhones that are sinful, and monochrome displays are virtuous, apparently.

False analogy aside, we already know TVs and then smartphones are addictive in a way older media never were. We already have studies about that, and we already have statistics about the dire consequences on teenagers and adults in many metrics.

So, your argument is a little like saying:

"In the 1940s and 50s we were scared that weed would fry the brains of young kids, but times have changed and now it's meth that is dangerous, and weed is ok, apparently".

Well, meth is hella dangerous, and that's a fact, even if they overblew the danger of weed in the 1940s.

[manoweb]

I agree with you that people tend to grossly overestimate the bad effects of a new technology. For example my kids cringe if they catch me or my wife looking at YouTube shorts. My son - that has complete, unlimited access to his gaming PC, installed a Firefox extension to block YouTube shorts. I think the problem will self-regulate at some point.

However I made my iPhone black and white as suggested by others and I love it, I believe I'll keep it like this for a few days because it looks so cool. We will see if it leads to less usage.

[coldtea]

>For example my kids cringe if they catch me or my wife looking at YouTube shorts. My son - that has complete, unlimited access to his gaming PC, installed a Firefox extension to block YouTube shorts. I think the problem will self-regulate at some point.

Kids might cringe because it's "out of fashion", then go themselves watch even worse doomscrolling bait than YouTube shorts, like TikTok or whatever's next.

[fastasucan]

>I think I might be going off the idea of e-ink, as a result.

The main benefit of e-ink isn't what you mentioned in the post, imo, it is that it is great to read with in everything from direct sunlight to darkness, which is less straining for the eyes.

Having something mainly for reading is also a nice thing for us that easily get distracted away from that.

[card_zero]

Yeah, it's still enticing me in that respect. Or even something beyond the practical: there would be a great aesthetic to it, a new kind of artistic experience, if a digital work was in full color and presented itself with reflected light, just like a book or a painting, where the white point was exactly the ambient white of a sheet of paper.