At a glance

• Based on the reader question: I keep getting lost on my phone every time I pick it up. Is there a simple way to stop?
• Your phone is designed to hold your attention. That's the business model. Turning the screen black and white removes the visual bait that drags you into a newsfeed
• The research is sobering: compulsive consumption of negative content is linked to existential anxiety and vicarious trauma, and a smartphone sat face-down on your desk still quietly reduces your ability to focus
• You don't need to go cold turkey. A Vegan, But Bacon approach works fine: greyscale most of the time, colour when you actually need it
• There are three ways to toggle greyscale, each with a different amount of friction. Start with the most and work your way down as the habit takes hold

Introduction

A few of my friends saw my new habit and followed suit, so I thought you'd also enjoy my trick for being less of a doomscrolling phone-zombie.

The trick is well-known: turn your phone screen black and white. But how I do it is different.

If going black and white on your phone sounds unrealistic, I've designed in some flexibility to make transitioning more manageable, as sometimes you just need colour.

In fact, being a Vegan, But Bacon person myself, even I don't stay in the world of greyscale all the time. Though I have found I need colour much less often than I would have wagered.

The benefits of going black and white

I've written about being Disciplined by Design before. The key point is that our willpower is limited, so it's better to design our tools and space to promote habits we want to practise and remove unhelpful distractions. Adopting this approach means you can be disciplined by design.

While I go into the research in my original article, we've all observed the opposite in our daily lives: being distracted by design. Technology companies spend billions to keep us hooked on their products. That's their business model. By holding our attention, they can sell us ads and harvest our data.

It's a race to the bottom. The best way to hold our attention, it turns out, is to appeal to our base instincts: outrage, shock, anger, lust, greed, guilt. It all pulls from the same Limbic Capitalist playbook.

Of all the habits I've tried, turning my phone screen black and white has been the biggest bang for the buck for escaping my phone's gravity. Now, when I unlock my device, I more intentionally end up where I need to be and avoid getting stuck in the orbit of a newsfeed.

Over the last few months, I've also found my mind is less scattered and my thoughts are easier to string together. Perhaps a byproduct of spending far less time doomscrolling.¹

So if you also fancy escaping your phone's gravity, here is my set-up.

The three ways to go black and white

I have three tiers that make toggling greyscale on and off easier. You can adopt the one that best suits you. The harder it is to toggle, the less likely you'll be tempted to return to colour and doomscroll. The flip side is that it's also harder to activate colour when you feel like you need it, though I'll bet you'll find the trade-off worthwhile.

I started with the 4-step option, as it has the most friction. I used this to build up the habit, and now use both the 2-step and 1-step options because I know I can trust myself.

Note: I'm running the latest version of iOS, which makes switching to black and white straightforward.

4-step option

To toggle greyscale on and off in 4 steps, go to Settings → Search 'filter' in the search bar → Tap 'Colour Filters' → Toggle on the greyscale filter.

Your phone will now be in greyscale. Welcome to visual peace and quiet.

2-step option

The button we toggled in the accessibility settings can be added to your iPhone's Control Centre.

To set this up, open Control Centre by swiping down from the top right of your iPhone screen. Next, press and hold. All the Control Centre icons will now be editable. Tap 'Add a Control'. In the search bar, type 'Filter'. 'Colour Filters' will come up. Add that and you're ready to go.

Whenever you want to switch between greyscale and colour, tap that icon in your Control Centre.

1-step option

This is now my default approach. I have used the Accessibility settings to add a triple-tap shortcut: tap the back of your iPhone three times and it activates.

You can use this to toggle many iPhone settings. I used to have it set up to take a screenshot, though I've found going greyscale more useful.

To get set up, go to Settings → Search 'Triple tap' → Go to 'Triple Tap' in the Accessibility settings → Scroll down and select 'Colour Filters'.

Now when you triple-tap the back of your iPhone, the filter will toggle on and off.

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A challenge for you

See what it is like going black and white most of the time. As I wrote in Vegan, But Bacon: '50% is better than 0%, especially if 100% isn't on the table.' Doing something most of the time is better than doing it none of the time. For me, ditching colour on my phone has been superb at turning it back into a tool rather than a parasite.

A hypodermic needle to the eye

Turning colour back on is wild. It feels like the screen is being injected into my retinas, which has only made me appreciate colour more when I decide to use it.

And when I change out of work mode and play a game, browse social media, or watch a few videos, they feel like treats rather than vices.

But the greyscale experiment also surfaced something I hadn't expected to confront: my broader relationship with the phone itself, its seductive screen, and the dynamic I want it to play in my life.

In The West Wing, there's a great moment where one of the characters, Leo, is reflecting on his alcoholism:

'The problem is I don't want the drink. I want ten drinks.'²

And then in a later episode:

'That's because you think alcoholism has something to do with smart and stupid. Do you have any idea how many alcoholics are in Mensa? You think it's a lack of willpower? That's like thinking somebody with anorexia nervosa has an overdeveloped sense of vanity…'

More and more it feels like picking up our phones is the equivalent of having a shot of liquor. And most of us can't stop.

1. The research is worth a look if you're sceptical. A 2024 study published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports found that compulsive consumption of negative news is associated with existential anxiety, a growing suspicion of other people, and a sense that life lacks meaning. Participants described something the researchers called 'vicarious trauma': a genuine psychological dent from events you never directly experienced, just scrolled past. Separately, a 2023 paper in Nature Scientific Reports found that the mere presence of a smartphone reduces basal attentional capacity, even when the device is face-down and untouched. The phone doesn't need to be in your hand to cost you something. ↩︎
2. Here’s the scene for anyone curious. ↩︎