Day #15 30 Day Digital Detox Challenge

Our 30 Day Digital Detox Challenge is all about introducing you to some simple ways to develop a healthy relationship with your phone in 2017!

It’s Day 15 of the challenge. We’re half-way through! How’s it going? Have you found any challenge so far that you think might be able to use long-term? Are there any that you’re finding yourself going back to and repeating because they’ve worked well?

Today we’re turning our attention away from just putting down your phone, to actually using one of its features to help you disconnect from it. Sounds paradoxical, but bear with us;

Day 15 – turn your phone display to greyscale

Software and UX designers spend their lives trying to build in screen features that make our smartphones attractive, compelling and very hard to put down. Colourful screens and icons, eye-catching notifications and a whole orchestra of sounds. When everything’s going off it can be a bit like having a jukebox in your pocket!

But one of the accessibility features introduced into the iphone could actually be used to your advantage when trying to ignore it. Included in settings is a way for you to turn your screen display from being rendered in full colour into grey. You’ll find it under general > accessibility > accessibility shortcut > colour filters. Selecting that option will turn your whole screen into shades of grey. (Hey, maybe even 50… ;).

Try it and you might just find your phone suddenly becomes a lot less attractive and distracting. The visual appeal of the screen is significantly diminished when it’s not in full colour and, even if you don’t turn them off, any app notifications really do look a lot less ‘urgent’ in grey.

Tomorrow we’re on Day 16. All the challenge videos are on our YouTube channel. Use the hashtag #30DayDigitalDetoxChallenge on Twitter and tell us how you’ve been finding it so far!