I wanted to break my habit of doomscrolling<\/a>, so I tried a friend\u2019s suggestion and changed the color filter mode on my iPhone 17 to grayscale. While it did make my phone less distracting, it ultimately became too frustrating to use.\u00a0<\/p>\n While using grayscale, I found myself toggling back to color mode when I wanted to watch a YouTube video or edit my photos before posting them to social media. After a few days, I was back where I started, using my phone in full color.<\/p>\n That changed when I found this photograph:<\/p>\n A solar eclipse, as seen from space by the crew of Artemis II, makes a stunning image because of the technological achievement it represents. It also makes a cool phone background.\u00a0<\/p>\n I used that photo of the solar eclipse for my lock screen and home screen wallpaper. And then I tweaked my phone\u2019s Liquid Glass<\/a> settings.<\/p>\n Since iOS 26, iPhone users have been able to give their apps a Clear appearance<\/a>, which makes app icons appear translucent, ostensibly to give you a better view of your colorful wallpaper. However, with a grayscale photograph as your background, your icons won\u2019t display any color at all.<\/p>\n The result? A screen that looks black-and-white when I pick it up, but shows full color when I use my apps.\u00a0<\/p>\n It turns out this is exactly what I needed for my phone. It\u2019s less immediately distracting, and so I use it a little more intentionally. I don\u2019t have the impulse to check Instagram as soon as I unlock it.\u00a0<\/p>\n You can also achieve the same look on an Android phone. If your phone is running Android 12 or newer, you can use the Material You<\/a> customization options to make all your apps the same color. You can change your wallpaper to a grayscale image, and then pick from the dynamic color<\/a> options.<\/p>\n The one slightly annoying thing about my phone\u2019s appearance is that when I\u2019m charging it or I have it on Low Power Mode<\/a>, the battery icon is a splotch of color on my otherwise monochrome lock\/home screen. I wish I could get that icon to stay in grayscale, but it\u2019s not a dealbreaker.<\/p>\n A few years ago, I spent a week with my phone in full grayscale color mode, mostly just to see if I could do it. A coworker saw my screen and jokingly said, \u201cDo you hate life?\u201d At the time I laughed, but I continued to think about that comment.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true that a portion of my identity exists on social media, and yes, I have long-distance friends who I keep in touch with through my phone. But I don\u2019t live life on my phone. I could capture the most breathtaking photograph of a sunset\u2019s colors, but it\u2019ll never look as good as the real thing.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve found my happy medium: A phone that displays color when I need to check social media and share pictures, but doesn\u2019t draw me in with color as soon as I look at it.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a perfect solution for eliminating every phone distraction. But it\u2019s made my phone look a little less like a slot machine and has probably saved me from a few minutes of mindless scrolling every day. In today\u2019s attention economy, I\u2019ll take all the IRL time I can get.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJason Chun is a CNET writer covering a range of topics in tech, home, wellness, finance and streaming services. He is passionate about language and technology, and has been an avid writer\/reader of science fiction for most of his life. He holds a BA from UC Santa Barbara and an MFA from The New School.![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/art002e009301large.jpg\")
NASA<\/p>\n![\"Jason](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/50193a03-fc9f-4eec-8349-238c5e8d9170.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSee full bio\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I know it\u2019s 2026, but hear me out: Our phones should have less color.\u00a0 Just look at your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":936851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[49,48,190,61],"class_list":["post-936850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mobile","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}