Self-experiment: turning your mobile phones display to grayscale

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/01/self-experiment-turning-your.html

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I wonder if this will make it less attractive to one’s children?

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Brilliant! Trying this at once!

UPDATE: I can’t find this option on my cheap Chinese android. T_T

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You can also do this on Mac OS. I don’t actually find I have a phone problem, but I can definitely say it helps me focusing on my computer.

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On my cheap Chinese Android phone, I had to enable developer settings, as described here.

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I already have most everything banished on my phone; removing color just makes it that much harder when I’m forced to dig into the list of icons for a special-case app.

Also on my junky phone the (no)color filter adds to the gfx overhead and slows everything down. Bah.

I’m of an age that grew up to moving images in a box - and they were always black, white and grey. [“Vulcans are green? What are you talking about?”] Just the moving images themselves were constantly visually seductive and when they turned to color, doubly so. When Fujifilm (et al) and various print/pixel media oversaturate colors I was and am inevitably taken in and embarrased that I am so gullible.
The constant color oversaturation as well as constant straight lines, constant right angles and constant consistency in my pixelworld are more reason to appreciate a near-grey walk in the woods on an overcast day.

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I want to state the obvious here, but right now my phone is black and it will stay that way until I touch it or I get a phone call or message. Of course here I am looking at colorful boingboing on my laptop in between cleaning the house.

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Oh my God, I am certain my phone would explode if I did that!

(Can you tell I’m not a maker?)

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This has been an issue with color TV as well.

The screens, they’re not just AS colorful as the real world, they’re MORE colorful than the real world. Even photographs and video of real things are usually hypersaturated on the screen.

screenshot

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Did this months ago, and love it. Now colour iPhone screens just look weird to me.

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i’d be curious to see the statistics on how it impacts incognito mode usage.

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“Negative colors” is good for reading on a phone at night too.

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If you use windows then f.lux can also make the screen greyscale.

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I’ve been using “3K SR Black,” an amazing FREE b/w icon pack available on Google Play for years on my Moto E.

I get the sense that was written by a younger person who didn’t grow up with black & white TV, black print on (slightly yellowed) white paper, and monochrome monitors.

It does help with focus though. One of the early programs I wrote on a full-color PC was to adjust the OS palette to emulate a monochrome amber monitor. Very easy on the eyes, less distraction, great if you’re spending hours reading/writing text and need to focus on creativity. I still have my colors set that way in Writemonkey. F.lux’s ‘Himalayan Salt Lamp’ setting isn’t bad but not quite the same.

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I didn’t evolve from my trusty Motorola F1 to a gajillion euro fruit phone just to see everything in black&white again.
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Using flux right now… looks like … I should clock out and go home soon.
Good advice that, flux.

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Somehow this reminds me of watching the original b/w Nosferatu, in this weird color-tinted. Why, oh why!
Luckily I had the idea to adjust the color and turn it all the way down. …Which could also be a quick (life?)hack for desktop monitor users who can’t/won’t use apps like f.lux.