The Clumsy Interloper

Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters > Grayscale

If you already know where I’m going with this I want to offer an earnest, “Hear me out. I’m not a nut, I promise.” If you don’t have the foggiest notion of what this means then I have a modest proposal for you. However, unlike Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” from 1729 which satirically proposed that the solution to poverty was to butcher Irish children and serve them as food to wealthy English landlords, I truly mean what I am about to proffer.

Recently I’ve made a change that has altered the fundamental way I interface with my phone which has caused a paradigm shift in how I live my life. Again, to reiterate, I am not a nut. The most insidious thing about the smartphone is the vivid, pacifying glow that beckons you like the bioluminescent beacon of an anglerfish in the ocean deep. It slides into your hand without resistance and before your cognitive awareness catches up you have traveled down a YouTube rabbit hole for 30 minutes and you are now viewing a bespoke video buffet with a chorus of charismatic people imploring you to smash that subscribe button. This is not your fault, the smartphone was engineered by a billion dollar industry to massage the pleasure centers in your brain and encourage these patterns of behavior.

Now, I’ve never spoken to anyone who made a resolution to use their phone more. The elephant in the room is growing exponentially. The next time you are at a restaurant look around to how many phones are in hands or on tables. When you are queued at left hand turn lane watch the faces of the drivers passing in the opposite direction and see what percentage of them are looking down at their phones – it’s higher than you might think. I’m not being holier-then-thou, I’m a phone toting Dad who videos and voice texts and checks the weather app compulsively. We have all bent the knee of fealty to Big Tech. This is precisely why I want you to join me in this drab and colorless world of the resistance.

When you grayscale your phone, the siren call is snuffed out. Your Candy Crush and Wordle are incomprehensible. The device is in eternal Gameboy settings. Social media looks like microfiche. Think about it, even these references are dated and boring. The appeal of your phone is instantly removed and you will know this because after 15 minutes your brain will start screaming at you like a junkie to reverse course. Be strong. Resist this urge. If you can make it a day, then go for two days. If you make it a week, then go for two weeks. I, too, was dubious but now that I’m committed it feels like I have a new lease on life. The grass is truly grayer on the other side.