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The grayscale challenge

There was an article in NY Times about turning phones to grayscale. I found it while waiting in line in a theatre, January 18th. The line was long and as anybody else in the line, I was holding my phone in front of my face, reading and texting.

The basic idea is that the colors bring attention and with turning them down you can control the attention. I do not want to repeat once written, here is the original article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/12/technology/grayscale-phone.html

Immediately I used the display filter on my iPhone and turned display into grayscale. I did not find it strange first. After more than two months, I turned the display back to normal color mode. Here are my personal observations:

  1. Text: Obviously, no problems. Reading online can be even better, because you can ignore ads more easily.
  2. Camera: I like black and white photography, it was OK.
  3. Images: My photos were OK, however with some pictures from other people I wished to see colors.
  4. Video: Watching videos felt like watching and old TV. I almost stopped watching videos (mostly on youtube) on my phone.
  5. Maps: This was the biggest problem. Especially with a subway map, I could not tell the color of a line. I use maps often in the city. For me this is important and the reason to go back to colors.

What did I learn? With grayscale display, the world around you seems to be more attractive than your phone. However it can be impractical for some applications. Customized filters for apps could be a good compromise.

You can read other experience here:
https://blog.mozilla.org/internetcitizen/2018/02/13/grayscale/


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Location: New York, NY, USA

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