
Tech companies use “persuasive design” to hook; psychologists say it’s unethical - jchin
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/8/17664580/persuasive-technology-psychology
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nojvek
> I don’t think the general public is aware of it. I have so many parents who
> say they’ve lost kids’ [attention] to social media, but they have never
> heard of Dr. Fogg, and they definitely haven’t heard of persuasive design.
> But you can go onto LinkedIn and find psychologists working for Facebook,
> Instagram, and tons of gaming companies. There are so many psychologists
> doing persuasive design at Microsoft’s Xbox — just look at their team list.

> where Facebook openly talked about exploiting the emotions of teens,
> [tracking teens feeling “insecure,” “worthless,” “stressed,” “useless,” and
> like a “failure”]. They were bragging to stakeholders about their ability to
> do this.

When I go to restaurants nowadays, the adults would have a conversation but
>50% the kids are glued to their personal ipads or parents phone playing
games, watching cartoons or something else.

There's so many things that hit for our attention daily it's kind of crazy.
When we have an entire generation of kids growing up glued to their
smartphones using only a couple of apps that bombard them with ads daily, I
wonder what happens?

I believe "commercial free childhood" campaign has a solid premise:
[https://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/](https://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/).
We should control Technology, not the other way round.

