How the Greyscale Challenge Can Change Your Life

  • category
    Social Media
  • author
    Christine Faulhaber
  • date
    May 29th, 2018

Photo Credit: Mozilla Blog

Today, we are more connected than ever before. We are programmed to constantly check our social platforms to be in the know and, of course, avoid FOMO at all costs. As a result, we are spending hours-on-end scrolling away our precious time.

What if we told you there is a way to continue to be informed while eliminating those aimless hours spent on apps?  We’ve done the research, and we would like to present to you: the “Greyscale Challenge.” In short, this is where you switch your iPhone display to black and white, which is proven to decrease addictive phone behaviour.

A few brave #FSQUAD members took on the challenge for three full days. Here’s what we found out during this trip back in time, looking at our phones through a colourless lens.

1. We no longer felt the impulse to immediately check notifications when they popped up on our screens. We realized that the bright attention-grabbing red, green and blue notification badges urge us to engage. However, seeing muted grey notifications pop up instead gave us the opportunity to prioritize what was really urgent, and what could wait until later.

2. Scrolling through social newsfeeds was still a regular habit; however, it didn’t have the same addicting effect. The fun was taken away from scrolling, as it was hard to connect with posts that were 50 shades of grey. We no longer felt excited to post a photo when we weren’t able to see the emotion captured through a coloured lens.

3. We were encouraged to look up – not down. The Greyscale Challenge eliminated that compulsion to spend our spare moments checking our phones. We could now take a breath, engage in the world around us, and be present. This made us more productive, alert and energized to take on whatever the day brought.

Imagine all the things you could do if you were able to kick your addictive phone habits… We urge you to try the Greyscale Challenge, even if it’s just for a few hours because Facebook connections will never beat face-to-face interactions.