HOW TO SPOT AN ADDICTIVE DIGITAL PRODUCT
Variable rewards
Likes and notifications give us the need to check our phones frequently
Feedback loop
Boredom is our worst enemy. Being hyperconnected helps keep us busy
Content never stops
With infinite scrolling and auto-play you are saturated with endless information
Vanity matrix
Arbitrary numerical goals like the number of followers and shares give us a dopamine hit
TIPS TO PLAN A DIGITAL BREAK
Identify which devices you are using in order to take a break from them
Tell people who are likely to contact you during the 24 hours what you are doing.
Try to invite the rest of your family or friends to join you. You can plan great activities together.
Reading, cooking, planning a game night, visiting a museum, there are many fun and relaxing activities you can do off the grid.
Create a physical contact list. If you have a landline write down the numbers of people you may want to call.
BEHAVIORAL DESIGN
It’s a framework for intentionally and systematically changing human behavior through persuasive modifications of the physical and digital environment.
Framework
It describes and predicts how and why people behave the way they do. It’s also a set of practices for changing those behaviors.
Intentional
Design and thinking tools are deliberately used to achieve specific behavioral outcomes.
Systematic
Methods and ideas come from observations and experiments in psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics.They explain how to achieve certain predictable behavior changes.
Change
It is all about behavior change. Tools are used to increase or decrease behavior frequency, make people start or stop doing something, doing it once or often.
Persuasion
It uses insights about how the brain operates as strategies for persuading people to change their behaviors.
Environment
When you use your smartphone app, the environment is your app’s user interface. Behavioral Design proposes tools for strategically modifying how these environments look and feel and how they respond to our behavior.