Does grayscale mode actually reduce phone use?

Colorful app icons and vibrant notifications are deliberately designed to catch your attention and trigger dopamine responses in your brain's reward center. When you switch your phone to grayscale, you effectively remove this visual reward system—apps become less visually appealing and your brain receives fewer stimulation cues.

Research by the Center for Humane Technology found that users who enabled grayscale reported their phones felt "less interesting" and they naturally picked them up less often.

You can enable this in your phone's accessibility settings, and many people find it particularly effective for reducing social media usage since photo-based apps like Instagram lose much of their appeal in black and white. Consider scheduling grayscale to activate automatically during certain hours.