Set Your Phone to Black and White

Setting your phone to black and white and committing to it is a game changer. Deleting distracting apps is a great place to start, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to use your phone for things like YouTube which can be both distracting and helpful. This lets you use your phone for information and as a tool, but be able to ignore the bright colorful distractions. Setting your phone’s screen settings to black and white really destroys the attention grabbing nature of it. It becomes almost painful to use, a true joyless endeavor. This makes using your phone for simple things like texting, calling, and reading interesting and enjoyable. I’ve also noticed that I lean towards YouTube videos with a stronger focus on information instead of just attention grabbing visuals. You’re able to actually focus on what you intended to instead of the blinking neon signs of the modern capitalist hellscape of phones and the internet.

The only major problem with this is really just the commitment to it. The sudden draining of colors from these devices really is like being plunged into cold waters and looking at YouTube videos or pinterest or whatever feels much less engaging. I have felt the draw many times to “just turn the filter off for this one video on YouTube” or this one game. In the past, I used to do that. This defeats the purpose though, and I would always forget to turn the filter back on. All that to say, commitment is the last step. No matter what just not turning it back on even if it’s inconvenient to not be able to see which text messages are blue or green on iPhone.

This is an update to my initial digital setup which I discussed in an earlier post. I kept that setup for over a year, and it served me well but ultimately had some holes/issues. Having minimal apps and a black and white phone is my new setup.