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Alex Strick van Linschoten

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Remove Your Colour

August 18, 2016 in Tech, Productivity

This is just a quick little trick that may or may not be useful for you. I can't seem to track down the site where I originally read about this, but if I discover it subsequently I'll be sure to credit the author/blogger because I've derived a lot of benefit from this.

The idea is simple: switch all your digital devices' displays to black/white or grayscale (i.e. turn off all colours). This includes phones and laptops and whatever else may have a bright colourful screen that allows you to change the colour configuration. You do this because, as I discovered, so many of the (cheap) tricks employed by websites and computer systems to get you to keep using them, all of these things use colour as a key tactic. By turning the colour off, you take away a lot of the emotional pull that these services have on you, and thus are more able to switch off, detach and so on.

Readers of this blog will know that I've been a long-standing advocate of turning everything off. My phone is on Airplane Mode for almost the entire day, usually, and my laptop is only connected to the internet if there's a particular reason. Connection to the internet, for me, is a privilege not a right. It's a rule that I've defined for myself -- (this will / may not work for you!) -- but it's one that I've defined because I had problems with these things in the past. For someone interested in learning more, with half an iota of curiosity about the world, the internet is a feast of opportunity and possibility. Social media more so: every connection is an opportunity to discover something new, and the stream never ends!

So I've become pretty good about switching these things off, but sometimes you have no choice. Having all screens as black-and-white means that I have a bit more objectivity, or power to stand back from the allure of programme x or service y.

You really notice how much colour plays a role in keeping you using your phone or a particular app when you turn the colour back on after a few days with it turned off. (Occasionally you have to identify a particular colour in an emailed photo, or some such). Suddenly everything is pretty. Reds and blues and greens glisten. The screen on most modern devices is really a marvel, and it's clearly designed to work well with colour.

Still, turn it off. That's how they get you. (Instructions for Macs here, Android phones here, PCs here (sort of), and iPhone/iPads here). You might be surprised how it gives you a bit more power over your own choices.

Tags: productivity, Technology, hack, iPhone
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