This hidden iOS setting cured my cellphone habit

My display time is a tough capsule to swallow. Between working on-line all day, studying my Kindle at evening, and going via the motions of being a Zillennial simply making an attempt to coordinate film evening with my buddies, the hours I spend watching a display are sufficient to make any modern-day optometrist just a little dizzy.

And that is not even accounting for the social media scrolling that strikes at any time when I am ready for software program to load. It is unconscious at this level — ready for a single e-mail to return via out of the blue turns into six Instagram Reels earlier than I regain management of my consciousness once more.

Muscle reminiscence and dopamine spikes are the culprits, certain, but it surely’s not like I put too many limitations between me and the doomscroll. It’s miles too simple to entry my social media apps, and I am unable to simply delete them — I am a social media supervisor, in spite of everything. So fairly than imposing closing dates I’d simply ignore, I tweaked two tiny settings that tricked me out of my scrolling tendencies: app look and labels.

Radical app look adjustments

As a result of the grayscale trick is not sensible

Anybody I’ve ever recognized who’s put their cellphone in grayscale mode has lasted a couple of week earlier than flooding their display with colour once more. Positive, it makes addictive apps much less interesting, but it surely additionally makes it borderline inconceivable to take (and have a look at) photos, watch movies, or do any form of on-line procuring. It is true that grayscale can reduce display time, but it surely does so by making your system depressing to make use of — and there is undoubtedly a greater approach to do this with out the distress issue.

iOS 18 launched the flexibility to mass-change your cellphone’s app look and create a cohesive, aesthetic house display with colours of your alternative. Most individuals I do know opted for vivid electrical purples or serene sage greens — each screamed aesthetic — however vivid colours are nonetheless attention-grabbing. If my Instagram app is out of the blue turquoise, it is nonetheless going to catch my eye (and the following half-hour of my time). Good begin, Apple.

However iOS 26 made the looks choices even higher with Liquid Glass, and at last tempted me sufficient to stray from the colourful defaults of my favourite apps. That is how I by chance found my anti-addiction repair: I used to be taking part in with completely different colours and transparencies for my apps after I realized I used to be late for an appointment. Within the panic that adopted, I did not have time to choose the proper colour and actually ran out the door with my house display tinted a muddy gray-brown.

After just a few hours, the colour had form of grown on me (it matched the autumn vibes) however I seen that my eyes weren’t getting snagged by the pinks, purples, and yellows of Instagram. I could not even discover TikTok’s well-known music-note icon. X vanished someplace within the chaos of my app hoard, and even Slack evaded my consideration for just a few hours… sorry, boss.

The epiphany got here with just a little frustration: I ended scrolling and began counting on the search bar as a substitute. However that motion alone made each app faucet an intentional transfer fairly than a unconscious reflex.

To alter your homescreen look, comply with these steps:

1. Click on and maintain clean area in your iPhone’s homescreen.
2. When the apps begin to jiggle, faucet Edit within the higher left-hand nook.
3. Choose Customise from the dropdown.
4. Choose Tinted, after which drag the sliders to decide on between colours and lightness.

I adopted this up with one other delicate tweak, and it ended up being the cherry on prime.

Take away app names

An actual guessing recreation if you do not know all of your apps

To make discovering sure apps even more durable, I erased all of the labels from my house display. To take action, comply with the identical steps as above and discover the top-right toggle displaying a small sq. subsequent to a bigger one. This allows you to select between smaller icons with names beneath, or larger icons with no labels in any respect.

To begin with, I similar to the best way the larger icons look. However now, if I scroll to my third web page of apps (lots of which I obtain for articles and barely contact afterward), I am unable to even inform what half of them are with out opening them. It creates yet one more impediment between my itch for a fast scroll and the app that might scratch it.

Different tweaks I discovered useful

There’s another choice on the other facet of the icon-size toggle: mild versus darkish. I do not imply the system-wide Mild vs. Darkish Mode — that comes later. This one adjustments the delicate background tone of your private home display. Whereas the distinction is minor, the darker model is simpler on the eyes and dampens any visible noise behind your apps.

Then, I went to the underside of the customization menu to decide on Auto as a substitute of Mild or Darkish. I appreciated the look of my tinted apps through the day, however the slight shift when the solar goes down offers my display an entire new aura and makes my social feeds even much less tempting. It is simpler on my eyes and retains me from getting too snug with the structure.

These delicate variations are sufficient that I’ve seen I’m spending much less time doomscrolling and extra time writing in my Notes app — my favourite (and way more productive) pastime.