Cell phone addiction has hardly been researched, but everyone knows the symptoms: whenever we are bored for a few seconds, we no longer use the time to relax or think about ourselves and the world – instead we check Whatsapp & other messengers for new messages, search for news on Facebook, scroll through endless Instagram pictures or post photos ourselves or try our luck at 20bet Gambling.

Black and white trick against cell phone addiction

The New York Times ran the headline that quitting smartphones is the new quitting smoking. Now we have found an exciting idea at treehugger: Simply switching your smartphone to black-and-white mode can help combat smartphone addiction.

And yet there is something to it: if the smartphone is operated without color, everything on it looks “gray”. The cell phone loses a lot of its appeal. Because color has a signal effect on us in the truest sense of the word. Color stands out and makes it clear: this is important! That’s why everything in the colorful world of smartphones always seems too important to many.

We tried it out ourselves, even though we don’t consider ourselves smartphone addicts and somehow couldn’t take this simple trick very seriously at first. But the typical comments from our black and white switchers were always: “Nah, I don’t like my smartphone like this anymore.” That’s a good thing! Because that’s exactly the point.

Will we just secretly switch back to color? Definitely. That’s why it might be a good idea to make a targeted commitment to “gray days” to combat smartphone addiction. For example, you could switch to black and white during the week and only “treat yourself to color” at the weekend … just an idea.

Activate gray mode

Activate black and white mode – here’s how:

Android: Settings / Accessibility / Visual aid and switch on Grayscale there (may vary depending on the model).

iPhone: Settings / General / Accessibility / Display adjustments / Switch color filter to On (default: Grayscale).

Smartphone addiction / Cell phone addiction: Set your phone to gray – Android on the left, iPhone on the right

Set your phone to gray: Android on the left, iPhone on the right (Screenshot: Utopia.de)

Smartphone addiction: 10 more tips to help

Not all tips may seem useful at first glance, some may even sound unpleasant or unfeasible. Just try out a few and see for yourself what works for you:

• Silence it. One step against smartphone addiction: reduce the signal tones on your smartphone. To do this, switch off the notifications of the various apps or withdraw permission for them to give notifications – you should also switch off the vibration. Every notification tone only tempts us to reach for our smartphone again.
• Reduce apps. Whatsapp, Snapchat, Hangouts are just one side of the coin – then there are all the news apps, mail apps, dating apps, Facebook & Instagram … Slimming down helps: fewer apps also mean fewer distractions. Do you really need four messengers, wouldn’t one be enough, and just one social network?
• “Relocate” your cell phone. Out of sight, out of mind – this also applies to cell phone addiction. Why not just leave your phone in your pocket instead of putting it next to you on the table, where it is always capable of tearing you away from your concentration?
• Create smartphone-free zones. The bathroom and bedroom would be a good place to start, or the children’s room for families: you could simply decide for yourself that a smartphone has no place in these rooms. It would be a first step against cell phone addiction.
• Go offline for a change. Defined times without a cell phone are also a good idea. Simply switch it off – and don’t be afraid of “unavailability”: Anyone who hasn’t been able to message you by 8 o’clock in the evening will be able to wait until the next day to do so.
• Set up “office hours”. It may be a consolation to some that we used to be addicted to email rather than smartphones. What helped with emails is also recommended for Messenger: limit the time in which you reply to emails and messages to a certain hour. This is your office hour – you are not available outside of this time. Off, that’s it.
• Inform (“educate”) friends. Many people reply to messages via WhatsApp, Snapchat or other short messaging services immediately – and expect the same in return. This inevitably makes us slaves to the messenger. Making it clear to friends, relatives and the office that you cannot be reached via these channels, or only at certain times, helps to combat smartphone addiction.
• Search for watches. Many people no longer have a watch these days. Because they have a smartphone. But checking the time there only leads to you seeing the tempting messages on the display – and then wanting to check them after all. A simple remedy is therefore a simple watch within sight – it saves you having to look at your cell phone and its temptations.

Mindfulness exercise: breathe consciously

Secure your cell phone in a complicated way. Password-protecting your smartphone is a good idea anyway. And it can help with cell phone addiction: Instead of making it easy for yourself with a simple PIN, unlock pattern or convenient fingerprint, consciously switch to a password that is as complicated as possible. This will stop you from constantly checking to see if there’s anything new. Certainly not a tip for everyone …

• Smartphone apps against smartphones: Sounds absurd, but it does exist – for example the app Realizd: It informs you when and how much time you spend on your smartphone. We like Forest even better: this app lets you grow a tree (initially only virtual, unfortunately) in a freely definable, i.e. “addiction-free” time – and it dies as soon as you close the app (because you open another one). In other words, the app forces you to keep your hands off your cell phone – so that the tree grows. Successful virtual trees earn virtual coins, which can then be exchanged for real tree plantings. (Can also be used for the Chrome browser, where websites such as Facebook can be blocked …)
• Is smartphone addiction a real problem or just hype again? Whichever way you look at it: Not all of us feel addicted to smartphones – but then, most smokers don’t consider themselves addicted either.

However, according to a study (B2X), around half of all millennials (the generation born at the turn of the millennium) check their smartphone more than 50 times a day, and 25% of millennials spend more than five hours a day on their cell phone.

According to the study, many feel frustrated (27%), lost (26%), stressed (19%) and sad (16%) without their cell phone and 4% would even go to jail for a month to avoid having to give up their device for a year (says the study).