Former Design Ethicist at Google and founder of the non-profit Time Well Spent, Tristan Harris has been making the rounds lately, talking about how technology is engineered to be addictive and hijack our attention. He’s pretty persuasive, comparing the lure of your phone to the that of a slot machine.
Image by Lifehacker.
Most of the time, you check your phone and there’s nothing interesting — no notifications, just the same old apps staring back at you. But sometimes checking your phone is rewarding — you get an amusing text, a flurry of likes, an email containing good news. This hit is satisfactory enough to keep you returning, checking your phone compulsively for another dopamine jolt.
Go Grey
To combat phone addiction, Harris suggests enabling greyscale on your phone. It might not cure your addiction completely, but certainly Instagram and Snapchat are going to be a lot less appealing in black and white than they are in technicolor.
The process for enabling greyscale differs for different models of Android phones, but it’s typically accessed via the “Accessibility” menu. In iOS 10, go to Settings > General > Accessibility >Display Accommodations >Colour Filters. Switch Colour Filters on and select Greyscale. To easily toggle between colour and greyscale, go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut > Colour Filters. Now, you just press the home button three times to enable greyscale. Triple-click again to go back to colour.
Image by Lifehacker.
Harris has a whole bunch of compelling tips on how to beat phone addiction. If you’ve successfully kicked the habit, please for the love of God tell us how you did it.
Comments