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diimdeep

I think it is bullshit, because black and white slot machine still is a slot machine.

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/6/8544303/casino-slot-machin...

[2]: https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-scientists-who-mak...

[3]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphon...

[4]: https://venturebeat.com/2016/04/02/app-makers-its-time-to-st...

[5]: https://medium.com/@anamitra/dopamine-hits-and-product-desig...

Turned on grayscale in macOS(System Prefs - Accessibility - Display) before googling this articles, can confirm that still receiving dopamine hits.

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Ingrained associations don't die easily. I remember when I first quit facebook. I still had the habit of quickly pressing "F, enter" for months after I quit. After a couple years though, I hardly ever go through that old routine.

Check out Nicky Case's game about neuroplasticity: http://ncase.me/neurons/

Just now I enabled grayscale via the Android developer menu. I noticed an immediate reduction in intensity. It didn't feel like "bullshit" to me! If you want this to help you, you're probably gonna have to give it a little bit more of an open mind. The attitude of "this is bullshit" could very easily sabotage any positive benefits of this exercise. Big things grow from small seeds, but only if you water them, give them light and make sure they don't get crowded out by more aggressive plants.

Everyone loves placebo, but after browsing for half hour in grayscale and turning back color there is some kind of wow effect.

Color really does pop!

By the way, I definitely agree with you that color is not the only way computer applications are addictive.

It's not the full solution but it's definitely part of it. Colour on my phone overwhelms me now (i've been gray since June)

> I remember when I first quit facebook. I still had the habit of quickly pressing "F, enter" for months after I quit.

Same.when I run a distraction blocker, I often don't realize I'm firing another ’ctrl+t,f,enter' sequence until I hit the blocker.

It's made me realize how devilishly efficient companies are at exploiting our dopamine cycles. Case in poin: I tried to disable in app purchases in Google Play, but short of removing all payment options (which breaks my project fi billing), there's no way.

For as frustrating as I find it, though, it's devastating to think of the impact on ppl living in poverty,for whom every source of daily relaxation is probably some well funded dopamine dealer trying to extract their $11 / hr pay one micro transaction at a time.

It's nowhere near a solution, but it helps a little. Those red notification badges really play tricks with your mind.

Grey-scale + no social media apps + carefully controlling the types of notifications you receive makes a smartphone almost not an unhealthy thing to carry in your pocket.

> I think it is bullshit, because black and white slot machine still is a slot machine.

> Turned on grayscale in macOS(System Prefs - Accessibility - Display) before googling this articles, can confirm that still receiving dopamine hits.

It's not a solution to the whole problem, just part of the problem; specifically this part:

> “Color’s not a signal for detecting objects, it’s actually something much more fundamental: it’s for telling us what’s likely to be important,” Mr. Conway said. “If you have lots of color and contrast then you’re under a constant state of attentional recruitment. Your attentional system is constantly going, ‘Look look look over here.’ ”

These companies are manipulating every physiological knob they can. This is one, addictive dopamine hits are another.

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