Last week I tested the internet’s favourite anti-doomscrolling trick:

turning your phone to gray scale (black and white).

The theory is simple: remove the bright colours that hijack your brain’s dopamine system and suddenly your phone becomes far less addictive.

Did it cut my screen time in half?

Well… not exactly.

But it did reveal some interesting things about how our brains react to colour, stimulation, and the endless scroll.

In this week’s Field Report we discuss:

• Whether gray scale actually reduced my screen time
• Why social media becomes weirdly less appealing in black and white
• How the experiment accidentally pushed me into a ChatGPT rabbit hole
• Why real life suddenly looked much more colourful and vivid
• A brief “Have We Lost the Plot?” anthropology segment on humans and colour stimulation
• The unexpected downside: trying to play phone games in grayscale

Plus:

Find of the Week

Appreciating colour again (and the joy of bold interiors)

Fail of the Week

Spending another two hours helping June solve a murder in June’s Journey

Join the Actually Trying Book Club

👉 https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/freetrial

Lucy’s interiors Instagram

👉 https://www.instagram.com/lucycollierinteriors

Follow the podcast so you don’t miss next week’s experiment.

If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend who is also trying (and occasionally failing) to reduce their screen time.

Next week’s topic may or may not make brands even more nervous about working with me… but at this point the damage is probably already done.

See you then.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If your screen time is creeping up…

If your phone feels impossible to put down…

If the real world is starting to look a bit dull by comparison…

This week I’m testing a free, surprisingly simple method that claims to reduce doomscrolling fast.

No apps.

No discipline hacks.

No expensive “digital detox” retreats.

Just one setting change.

In this episode we discuss:

• How color and contrast hijack your dopamine system
• Why overstimulation can make the real world feel flat
• The “gray scale” method and how to set it up
• And why I realised I needed to fix this — urgently

I’m committing to a full week of gray scale to see if it genuinely reduces screen time.

If you try it too, let me know what happens.

The Instructions

To enable grayscale on an iPhone, navigate to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters, then toggle "Color Filters" on and select "Grayscale"

To turn on grayscale on Android, go to Settings > Digital Wellbeing & parental controls > Bedtime mode and enable "Grayscale"

📲 DM me on Instagram:

@rosehoneymorgan

@field.notes.pod

I’ll report back with the results.

⭐ If this episode helps:

Follow the show, leave a review, or send it to the friend who says “I don’t go on my phone that much” but somehow knows every trend

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

📚 Book Club Free Trial : https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/freetrial

Next month’s book: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

Link in show notes.

Join us so I can reject brands with confidence.

ANYWAY

I’m back from the front lines.

Four whole days.

Zero processed food.

Planned, chopped, cooked, washed up.

Repeated.

Never again.

In this episode we discuss:

• The emotional toll of planning three meals a day like a Victorian housewife
• Whether chopping board dinners are secretly genius
• Why cheeseboard dinner is an elite parenting hack
• The M&S “non-UPF” range (sausages, buns, ketchup — full review)
• Migraines, morale, and missing Biscoff
• Being dropped by my first big brand deal and spiralling publicly
• Whether I should sell my soul for a podcast editor
• And if early death from crisps is simply a trade-off I’m willing to make

The experiment verdict?

Did I feel superhuman?

No.

Did I feel morally superior?

Briefly.

Did I miss ready meals with my entire being?

Yes.

Cheeseboard dinner.

Elevated picky bits.

Zero guilt.

Highly recommend.

Everything else.

If you’ve cracked the code on eating well without turning it into a full-time job, tell me.

📲 DM me on Instagram:

@rosehoneymorgan

@field.notes.pod

⭐ If you enjoyed this episode:

Follow the show.

Leave a review.

Send it to a friend but pre warn them about which episodes are shite.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.