
Scientists who make apps addictive - sdeepak
https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-scientists-who-make-apps-addictive
======
netcan
The development of online software over the last 10-15 years is a case study
in feedback loops. It really has flipped the paradigm.

For lotus notes, success is when a user makes the software do what she wants,
like sending an email. In the modern equivalent, the _software_ (designer)
succeeds, when the user does what the software wants, like sending an email.

~~~
panic
This is a symptom of detailed metrics. When you're responsible for the "send
an email" feature, you want to show you're doing your job. Getting more people
to send email is an easy way to show progress without having to understand
people's actual experience with the feature.

~~~
all2
> Getting more people to send email is an easy way to show progress without
> having to understand people's actual experience with the feature.

That makes my gut turn a little bit. It is a blind and abusive dynamic and I
think it is horribly wrong.

For a while, I've been pondering what ethically designed software looks like
from a user's perspective. And, for the modern consumer I don't have any
answers.

The obvious bits are "it allows the user to do what they need" (ie, send an
email, or draw a picture, communicate with friends, etc), but I don't know how
to disconnect the functionality from addictive design elements.

Does that mean a HN style interface, where you can look at what threads you've
started, but with no notifications? Or something else?

~~~
munificent
_> I don't know how to disconnect the functionality from addictive design
elements._

One way to think about it is, does the software help the user achieve their
goals without trying to change what their goals are? Even this gets fuzzy when
you think about long-term and short-term goals. An exercise app that
manipulates me to frustrate my short-term goal of being lazy and help me reach
my long-term goal of being fit might be ethically good.

But there are many clear cases where the app's job (just like much of
advertising) is not to give me what I want, it's to _control_ what I want and
make me want what the app developer wants me to do.

One way I measure this informally is by asking how I feel _after_ I use an app
and put it down. While I'm using it, it always feels good because that's how
these programs are designed. But many apps leaving me with a linger feeling of
regret afterwards, exactly like the feeling I get after binging on junk food
or drinking too much the night before.

Those are the apps that are a problem.

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xte
Hum, mumble mumble... I may have experimented something like that, having
become an Emacs addicted... But I'm sure enough that no Emacs devs work with
such theory in mind :-)

Maybe I also have a rebound effect against certain platforms/apps/digital
jails... How many sharing this around here?

Anyway, seriously: in the history we (as society) learn to distinguish good
and bad things, generally the hard way, we develop society-antibodies for many
"bad things". Unfortunately actual rapid growth of corporatocracy, while it's
not nothing new under the sun, it's evolved quicker than society capacity to
metabolize it and that's a real big danger for us all.

At nazi times it's easy to identify "the enemy" if someone go bomb you, go
invade your country, have clear uniforms, symbols, clearly state that want to
dominate the world it's easy to understand that's not good. But "new enemies"
learned that well, they suppress symbols, they ceased to appear a unique body
(of course, they are not, but even original nazi are not a unique body, have
had they internal fight etc) they do not say they want to conquer anything but
only "having success", like anybody want... Well for the mean, typical biped
that's not much evident. Especially since actual "humans" disappear being
presented as "platforms" with unclear propriety, with tons of different
commercial brands that belong to a sole subject but most people do not know or
if they appear in person they present themself as "genius in it's lab", young
happy hippy that "work for a better world".

And even worse, ancient dictatorship require strong power to stay and evolve,
actual corporatocracy do not. They simply remains as the sole option to buy
services or products. They do not have to prohibit something "free" like open
PCs, open cars etc, they simply stop to produce them after having bought any
possible other producer, substituting them with jails but well presented, well
colored and of course "for our safety".

~~~
staplers
Makes you wonder if a jail can be called such if it is made "fun". Eventually
the need to maintain "fun" disappears if no options to leave are present.

~~~
xte
It's depend on scale: if prisoners are few there is no need to make anything
fun; if prisoners are an enormous amount of people and guards are a little
group keep prisoners calm it's needed to avoid revolts.

Panem et circense always pay, at least as long as people can survive or have a
bit of something to loose.

------
Inu
I think the general danger with computers is falling into a trap of repetitive
behavior. In the age of letters you'd check your letter box maybe once a day.
Now everywhere we have systems of immediate responses. It creates these loops
of repetition where the constant stream of new data drives the user to be
constantly aware of the possibility to respond and consume. What if letters
could arrive at your home invisibly, at any time, without you knowing it? The
problem with technology seems to be that when things become too easy, they
often seem to acquire a potential of being destructive in a way that they
hadn't before.

~~~
Uberphallus
That's the first thing I do when I get a new phone: set up mail and usual
apps, disable notifications for most, notify every 4 hours for mail & others,
though I usually leave instant messaging run regularly. Also my phone is most
of the time in do not disturb, only calls go through.

At the beginning I kept checking, but eventually the need dies off, at least
in my case. Anything actually important will be a call.

~~~
avgDev
Never really thought about this....but this would really increase my
productivity. I get super annoyed when my wife keeps messaging me at work for
example, but I also respond all the time.

Disabling notification for few hours at a time is a great idea. I will give it
a shot.

~~~
wayne_skylar
I do the same thing. Calls go through as normal and messages get checked when
I feel like it. There have been a few occasions when I miss out on something
or whatever but it's way better my phone dictating when I give it attention
rather than the other way around.

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piyh
I found this youtube talk a while back. It's given by a consultant who's
selling these skills and has slides titled "Use of coercive monitization".

Some of the more disturbing parts are when he highlights forum posts about
targeting whales and people who say things like "I have to do every challenge
and every side quest and it takes away from my enjoyment of the game" and
"I've restarted this game hundreds of times because my character isn't
perfect".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zex3b2mDnUw&t=17m16s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zex3b2mDnUw&t=17m16s)

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quarkral
I think recommender systems are the biggest culprit in this. Most recommender
systems are probably trained with a simple objective of maximizing the amount
of time the user spends browsing through the list of recommended items.

The whole idea of continuously giving your users content so that they can
passively scroll down and be entertained is just like putting users in a box
where they can pull a lever to get food. When users are given all these
options without having to think and to actively search for them, they just
become vegetables.

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gaius
I don’t use FB myself anymore but my wife still does and this morning she
showed me some posts by a friend of ours. He’s... troubled anyway, but
recently he seems to have become addicted to self-harming and posting the
photos on FB for the reactions and comments. Congratulations, FB scientists,
this is your contribution to the world.

~~~
all2
Their contribution is profiting from his self harm, which is worse in some
ways.

~~~
wasdfff
How do these researchers justify such a lack of empathy in their product? If I
worked for a company that makes a product that does objective harm to society,
like Facebook or a missile, I would feel like I wasted years of my life as I
would be giving great effort to something where the outcome can only be
regression, not improvement of anyone’s life. Exploiting these behavioral
feedback loops for profit is cruel and dystopian. I already feel terribly for
all the people I encounter who could be so much more focused on their own
ambitions if they weren’t spending 4+ hours a day trapped in the infinite
scroll of social media. I know how much of a setback that kind of addiction
can be, because it used to be me.

~~~
okmokmz
>How do these researchers justify such a lack of empathy in their product?

$$$$ and/or personality disorders I imagine

~~~
all2
Willful ignorance or cognitive dissonance may also explain some of this. See
Nazi Germany: citizens knew _something_ was going on, but they willed the
whispering away.

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com2kid
As an aside, my previous team went through Fogg's course on feature planning.
It is truly a unique way to get stakeholder buy in on planned work. We went
from planning meetings that involved shouting matches to meetings where
everyone left happy.

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bvxvbxbxb
Captology and behavior design are, to a degree, marketing wank that sells
courses, lectures, speeches, books and consulting gigs... because it's fluffy
idealism PR people want to buy into. Sure you can fool most of the people some
of the time, a few of the people all of the time, but you can never...

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Viki789
Interesting article! Of course, scientists should work on the topic as the app
developers want to attract as many users as possible. Everything is in our
heads!

