Does turning your phone greyscale actually help?

Greyscale is the cheapest experiment in phone habits. It costs nothing, takes thirty seconds, and you can undo it with a triple-click. The question is whether it does anything beyond making your photos look like an old newspaper. The short answer: it helps a bit, it helps honestly, and it is not a cure.

What does it mean to put your phone in greyscale?

It means switching the whole screen to black, white and shades of grey. Every app, photo and notification badge loses its colour, but everything still works exactly as before: you can read, message, pay and navigate as normal. On iPhones it lives among the colour filters in the accessibility settings, and on Android it appears in accessibility settings and in Digital Wellbeing’s Bedtime mode.^{[5] [6]} These features exist mainly to help people with colour blindness or visual sensitivity. Using them to make a phone less tempting is a side use, which is why the setting can take a little finding.

Does turning your phone greyscale actually help?

Yes, modestly. The most careful study so far tracked the phones of 84 adults for two weeks: one normal week, then one week in greyscale. Average daily screen time fell by about 20 minutes during the greyscale week.^[1] People also reported feeling more in control of their phone use, and less overuse, online vigilance and stress.^[1]

The interesting part is what did not change. The number of daily unlocks stayed the same.^[1] People still picked the phone up just as often; they simply put it down sooner. The researchers read this as a sign of deep-rooted checking habits. Greyscale makes the screen less rewarding once you are on it. It does not stop you reaching for it.

Two caveats. One week is short, and there was no separate control group: each person was compared with their own previous week. So treat 20 minutes as a sensible estimate, not a guarantee.

What does the research on greyscale phones say?

Three studies are worth knowing about, and they point the same way.

The first, by the psychologist Alex Holte and a colleague, tested greyscale on college students and was published under the title “True colors: Grayscale setting reduces screen time in college students”.^[2] The University of Cincinnati’s own summary describes an average reduction of 39 minutes a day across roughly 220 students.^[4] A follow-up by the same team reported that greyscale reduced anxiety and problematic smartphone use, with the university describing nearly 135 participants.^{[3] [4]} We could not read the full papers, so we give these figures as the university reported them.

The third is the 2023 study above, which found the smaller drop of about 20 minutes and no change in unlocks.^[1]

Put together: greyscale reliably trims screen time, by somewhere between a quarter of an hour and half an hour a day in these samples. All three studies were short and two used students, so nobody yet knows whether the effect lasts for months or fades once grey becomes normal.

Why would a black and white screen make your phone less appealing?

Because colour is part of the pull. Holte has explained that he started from the observation that people are drawn to bright, saturated colours, and that the most popular apps all use them.^[4] Red notification badges, glossy thumbnails and vivid video are all designed to catch the eye. Take the colour away and a feed becomes visibly flatter.

That is the theory, not a proven mechanism. You will see claims that greyscale lowers dopamine. No study we found measured that. The studies measured minutes, unlocks and how people felt, and the honest summary is that grey makes scrolling slightly less fun.

How do you turn on greyscale on an iPhone?

Four taps. Apple’s UK support guide gives the route:^[5]

1. Open Settings, then tap Accessibility.
2. Tap Display & Text Size.
3. Tap Color Filters and turn Color Filters on.
4. Choose Grayscale.

To make it easy to switch, set up the Accessibility Shortcut: go to Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut and select Color Filters. Then triple-click the side button (or the Home button on iPhones that have one) to turn greyscale on or off.^[5] This is useful when you need colour for a moment, such as checking a map or a photo, and want grey straight back afterwards.

How do you make an Android phone greyscale?

The easiest route on Google’s version of Android is to schedule it. Open Settings, tap Digital Wellbeing, then Bedtime mode, set a routine, and turn on the Greyscale screen option, which Google describes as changing your screen to black and white at bedtime.^[6] You can also start Bedtime mode from Quick Settings.^[6]

Android’s accessibility settings include colour correction too (Settings > Accessibility > Colour and motion > Colour correction), which Google notes is not available on all devices.^[6]

Menus differ between makers. On Samsung and other brands, the simplest approach is to open Settings and search for “greyscale” or “grayscale”.

Does greyscale help you sleep or reduce blue light?

Not on the evidence so far. In the 2023 study, a week in greyscale did not change sleep quality, and it did not affect productivity either.^[1]

It also helps to be clear about what greyscale does. It removes colour; it is not a blue-light filter. Apple lists Night Shift, which makes screen colours warmer as it gets dark, as a separate feature.^[5] If sleep is your aim, the bigger change is where the phone spends the night: our piece on whether screen time affects sleep covers that. This is general information, not medical advice.

Should you put your phone in greyscale?

If you want a gentle, free nudge, yes. It suits people who feel they lose time to feeds and video rather than to messages, because those are the apps that rely most on colour. It suits evenings especially, which is why a scheduled Bedtime greyscale on Android is such a tidy option.

What it will not do is stop the reflex to check. The unlock count did not move.^[1] For that, you need something that adds distance: turning off notifications, moving apps off the home screen, or leaving the phone in another room. Our guide to apps to limit screen time covers the built-in tools, and how to use your phone less covers the free habits that do the most.

If greyscale makes you wonder whether you would be happier with a phone that cannot do much at all, our decision guide on whether to switch to a dumbphone is the next step. And if you want to see exactly which apps are eating your time before you change anything, The Anti-Algorithm Audit walks you through it on paper.