User:Francg/expub/media-writing/analysis-talks

Analysis on:

Nir Eyal, Building habit-forming products

Tristan Harry, Distracted? Let’s demand a new kind of technology

Technological advances in the Internet have been effectively freeing communication between humans by transforming the notion of distance into an abstract interval, which apparent physical limitations can be overcome by simply clicking on a button. Moreover, design has been along with this development, building alternatives for people to express themselves more effectively, wider and quicker through the use of electronic messaging and social networks. Nevertheless, the act of “sending” usually implies the forthcoming consequence of “receiving”, which creates the unpredictable variable of getting a response in form of comment, feedback, email or ‘like’. The uncertainty of this situation causes then a feeling of mystery and surprise, which produces a semi-stressful response in the brain that creates the desire and temptation for repeating this process again until finally getting a response or “reward”. This emotional loop induces a habit that aims to continuously complete these psychological duties in order to get back to that state, consequently creating addiction.

That is to say, clicking on a button or link means much more than merely giving one’s access to specific information, it can be the “hook” to a powerful habit that profoundly affects our behaviour by turning us into very dependent and distracted entities. It has been studied, that everytime we are interrupted online it takes us about twenty-three minutes on average to re-focus our attention before getting back to the task we were doing. The more interruptions we get externally, the more frequently we instruct our behaviour to interrupt ourselves.

This is what habit-design is unceasingly experimenting with, not only by analysing user’s online trace (personal data or social preferences) but by experimenting with thoughtfully minimalistic designed interfaces. In that case, usability design has the important function of removing the need to think while challenging, motivating and giving ability to the user by avoiding annoyances and triggering specific emotions like; powerless: checking for new unread messages, answering and clearing up daily email to finally feel in control of the Inbox. Boredom: watching a video in Youtube to be pleased and entertained. Social rejection and lonesome; this what certain labels like the number of “followers”, “friends” or “likes” or public responses concerning to your profile in social networks like Facebook or Twitter makes people feel more accepted. Dissatisfaction or confusion: scrolling down on Instagram, Pinterest or Facebook’s feed trying to find hope, as if we were supposed to stick smileys on people’s faces by having meaningless experiences.

These sorts of “empathetic joys” or “trance-like fun states” which people seem to frequently be dealing with, functions like “games” in which “self-achievement” is the final reward that eventually provides with confidence, control and consistency to the user. In a way, habit-forming technologies are predominantly designed to make us feel the need to validate ourselves socially, endlessly searching for personal gratification.

In a future where online access, data processing and speed creates new opportunities for developing useful technology, habit-forming techniques should consciously be integrated by prioritizing people’s values and setting matters that are important to people to positively influence helpful and healthy practices more efficiently. Although there seems to be already numerous goal-tracking or task-management apps with life dashboards or calendars, that hierarchically organise and record projects or events, and software that engages the user into more beneficial activities, it is nevertheless yet insufficient to cope and properly question how technology is affecting everyone’s attention by turning habits into wasteful addictions that careless habit-design is bringing along with.

Nothing is more effective than practice and therefore repeating habits that brakes with negative effects can turn into invaluable and fruitful personalized learning lessons. That is to say, we have to value our time and our attention by facing the never-ending empathetic loops, demanding a “net positive contribution” to human life, empowering intelligence and liberating our potential to useful needs.