Studies do show that the black-and-white mode is significantly less addictive but for me that effect wasn’t nearly strong enough and I’ve had to use other methods to try to not be on the tablet all day when I’m at home. The black-and-white mode doesn’t seem to help very much anymore when it comes to actually putting the thing down and getting to work. It did for a while and maybe that explains the studies; it just doesn’t help enough.
But I’ve still kept the black-and-white mode on (I set up a toggle to quickly turn it on and off and I mostly keep it in BW. I especially like the color mode for things that use color sparingly like how some manga are mostly BW but have some color pages or accents) because I found another benefit. It makes the real world slightly more colorful. It makes me slightly more aware of the room around me. The effect is tiny and can’t be relied on. It’ll collapse if put weight upon. But it’s not something I want to give up on.
A drawback is that it makes all the color screens in public to be eye-burning magnets that pull my attention into something that’s painful to look at. But I would’ve hated those screens anyway especially when they blast ads. Maybe a media overload hellscape worse than Transmetropolitan isn’t necesnarily the best way to build our cities. I’m so grateful for how the new bus schedule signs seem to be gently frontlit e-ink (as far as I can tell). They give me hope.