Why did you say "less addicting"?
https://github.com/ionutbortis/gnome-bedtime-mode
Yeah, you have to do some installing to get the feature you never knew you needed.
But nobody does that, because we love addictions.
The screen should slowly desaturate color and eventually switch to b/w when the phone detects mindless scrolling automatically. ;)
I became concerned that I'd turn it off when I temporarily needed color and forget to turn it back on, so instead I used Tasker to listen for L-R shake action and make that temporarily disable grayscale mode for 20 secs (in case I specifically decide I want to look at color in a photo or disambiguate something from grayscale). Works decently well, I can explain the Tasker steps if anyone else is interested.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40465686
Cheers
Wonderful
I am using gray scale on personal phone permanently, but avoided that on work phone as I might need to discern color in some work documents or screenshares.
What you describe seems like a perfect solution but does it work on all Android phones?
If you could throw some more light on the steps ... appreciate that!
Listed my config in a sibling comment:
It's a great feature, just swipe up from the bottom with two fingers whenever I need color.
I'm _almost_ certain that comes with any Android ROM from 9.0 up as a standard accessibility setting. All my Samsung devices have had it for a few years.
I granted it via ADB using the command line listed, but the other method with app might work too. If you don't have ADB, It's very easy to install by just downloading the right sdk for your OS, and you run the included ADB binary via command line while your phone is plugged in via USB, and USB debugging is enabled (which is an android developer setting).
Set your Android accessibility color correction type to grayscale if you don't have that already. The below Tasker action simply toggles it off and on.
Tasker config is-
Configure a Shake Left-Right event trigger (I recommend sensitivity 'Very Low' and Duration 'Long' to avoid accidental triggers)
Configure a 3-step action following the trigger:
1. Custom Setting
Type: Secure
Name: accessibility_display_daltonizer_enabled
Value: 0
3. Custom Setting
Type: Secure
Name: accessibility_display_daltonizer_enabled
Value: 1
Of course, once you have this action in Tasker, you can use any trigger to turn it on or off, like opening a particular app, turning it on when you are only at home or away, etc.
Works pretty well for me, there is one slight issue where some type of android display layout refresh occurs when the color toggle happens, which sometimes refreshes the interface you are on in a slightly annoying way. I tolerate it, it's ok, maybe setting a longer wait period would make this occur less often.
If these steps don't work / too confusing, try using the really great accessibility gesture support setting mentioned in a reply, instead or in addition: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40462366
FYI John Dalton was a scientist who pioneered color blindness research among many other fields, so his name is everywhere in color correction settings apparently.
Comparatively eink relies on ambient lighting (backlighted ones have it backwards in that regard)
"Minimalist" types often suggest turning your smartphone into B&W mode (usually an accessibility setting), precisely to reduce temptation to watch videos, social media, and such.
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".
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.
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.
Well, that's exactly what many social media addicts do need.
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-...
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.
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_.
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>
https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/371d5ced520d40e984d626ae304...
(And on Gnome, I use and recommend the following: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4012/gnome-bedtime/)
I use triple-back for "grayscale" (because I found myself double-tapping the back accidentally all the time.)
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.
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.
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.
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.