
Why your favorite apps are designed to addict you - jonbaer
http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/15708/addicting-apps-mobile-technology-health/
======
shostack
Finally managed to kick my Clash of Clans habit the other day. I realized I
had been logging in 1-2x/day for multiple years with maybe a couple weeks of
breaks after buying shields around the holidays.

My life has become increasingly cluttered with feeds, needing to login to
games I like to get bonuses and such, and it has started to pile up so I
decided I needed to make some changes, starting with CoC.

At first I had a lot of anxiety because the mechanics of the game would
penalize me pretty harshly if I was away for a few days/weeks and wanted to
come back. The lizard part of my brain started urging me to play it in a way
that was so urgent it felt like I could almost reach out and touch it.

But I had deleted the app from my device, and I sat myself down and told
myself that those urges had no weight because the consequences would never be
felt since I wasn't going to play the game again.

Now I'm past the hump, and while I still have many more things on my list to
extricate from my life in my path towards simplifying things, I definitely
feel a bit better. One less responsibility.

Don't get me wrong--I'm still a gamer, and likely will always be to some
degree. But I'm so jaded by games with super transparent mechanics like this
that they are starting to lose their hold over me. Started playing Pillars of
Eternity last night and it was refreshing to get into something story-driven
that didn't devote a significant chunk of the initial gameplay to introducing
me to various IAP mechanics.

~~~
seivan
I gotta ask you, as a gamer, don't you find Clash of Clans to be... well kinda
bad?

I mean the tech stack behind it, with replay functionality and async
multiplayer is cool together with its "Battle.net like" integration is also
working great for mobile. But as a game, it isn't better than any random mod
on WC3. It's essentially build, purchase crap, and attack. Sometimes they give
you the false notion that anything you do impacts the game itself as you
attack. You get "bombs" to drop and etc, but as a game... it's essentially
just a shallow graphic layer on top of numbers.

I understand you can say the same thing about most games, but somehow my brain
just rips apart Clash of Clans or Boom-beach easily, while it won't treat Star
Craft same way.

Just needed to ask.

~~~
shostack
Oh, 100% awful. The urge it solved for with me was the part of my gamer mind
that likes to see visual progress over time from upgrading various things.
Recently started playing Torchlight 2 again to get that same leveling up my
appearance effect.

As someone who does digital marketing for a living, I'm not only acutely aware
of all the tricks they are using, but also the "shallow graphic layer on top
of numbers" as you described it. Sometimes I can even visualize it kind of
like Neo in the Matrix.

Initially there might be some stimulus for me, but it tends to wear off
quickly and that has been my big issue with finding a good long-term game to
sink my teeth into. It also is incidentally the reason why Casinos hold no
appeal. I tried slots once and the moment my brain registered that I didn't
need to wait for the wheel to spin, and I could hit the button as quickly as I
wanted to generate the results, I thought "wow, this is like a game with
absolutely shitty graphics I have to keep paying for that has no skill
involved." And just like that I had zero interest in Casinos.

So I see all this going on in my head, but then there are things like Dungeon
Robber[1] that for some reason keep attracting me back. And they literally
give you the tables and such for the dice rolls as they are occurring. There
is even less of a veneer of graphics on top of the numbers (although in this
case I love D&D and I think it reminds me of my younger tabletop days).

That is what makes a lot of this stuff insidious for those that are less self-
aware. I can recognize when I'm getting the dopamine hit, and it can be fun to
experience, but for people who don't see it for what it is, I can only imagine
how devastating that could be.

These days I find myself (with few exceptions), gravitating towards team-based
games that are played in rounds (like Rocket League) that have a heavy
emphasis on skill so I can pick it up, put it down, and not feel obligated to
grind at all. Those seem to hit the sweet spot at the moment.

[1]
[http://blogofholding.com/dungeonrobber/index.php](http://blogofholding.com/dungeonrobber/index.php)

------
lilcarlyung
"Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products" by Nir Eyal and Ryan Hoover is a
really interesting read on this subject. For me it was eye-opening to think
about app development from a behavioral and psychological perspective, albeit
manipulative.

[http://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-
Product...](http://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products-
ebook/dp/B00HJ4A43S)

~~~
siquick
Great book, even if my girlfriend called me a creepy weirdo for reading it.

------
lalos
Reminded me of this long but worth it piece:

[http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/6/8544303/casino-slot-
machine...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/6/8544303/casino-slot-machine-
gambling-addiction-psychology-mobile-games)

"I can’t tell you how often I’ve been approached since the publication of my
book by Silicon Valley types who say things like, ‘Wow, the gambling industry
really seems to have a handle on this attention retention problem that we’re
all facing,'" Schüll told me. "'Will you come tell our designers how to do a
better job?’"

~~~
PhasmaFelis
A friend of mine was doing a business internship; someone mentioned hiring "a
Chinese sweatshop" to make their product. He laughed, but they weren't joking.

They're jolting, those moments when you realize you've been talking to someone
who acts just like a normal human being but is totally disconnected from basic
human empathy.

~~~
Dr_tldr
They exist, they don't offer good working conditions, but chances are that the
majority of the items in your home and almost all the clothes you wear were
made under similar conditions. I don't see any empathy being expressed by
someone who's complicit in a (mostly) bad thing but then denounces and
dehumanizes anyone who openly acknowledges it.

I think you're confusing 'empathy' with 'virtue signaling.'

------
bitwize
Every time I try out one of these damned stupid mobile ganes, I reach a point
where I'm like "okay, fuck this" and that's the point where it starts getting
grindy without spending cash. It's very subtle, like the moment a stripper
stops being friendly and starts silently expecting generous tips in order to
keep being friendly. But it's there, I hate it, and it makes games profoundly
unfun.

~~~
pimlottc
What worries me is that kids growing up today will think that this is normal,
just part of "how video games are". I miss the days when you paid once and got
full access to the entire game, limited only by your own skill. When the game
designer's chief concern was fun and playability, not artificial roadblocks to
spur paid "upgrades". It's a sad trend.

~~~
Terr_
On the flip-side, we've moved away from "fixed in the cartridge" games which
were Nintendo Hard.

[0]:
[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NintendoHard](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NintendoHard)

~~~
CM30
Those things still exist, they're just reserved for completionists now. The
optional content in any current era Mario game is arguably more awkwardly
designed than anything from similar games in the NES era, with the assumption
being that anyone attempting it is the kind of person who liked the 'Nintendo
Hard' titles of the 80s.

Presumably, designers now often see the 'main' adventure or campaign as for
everyone, the multiplayer mode as a way to keep most people playing instead of
fake difficulty and the 100% completion 'optional' content as for the
masochists.

------
Animats
I have Facebook only on the desktop, not on my phone. I don't want it
bothering me. There's nothing on Facebook that needs immediate attention, and
less and less of it that has anything to do with what my friends are doing.

Remember, sharing is spamming.

~~~
soylentcola
I've got a third party FB app that is basically a sandboxed wrapper for easier
browsing of the mobile website, but yeah, I agree. It's more for the rare
occasion I need to check on a conversation with someone who insists on using
Facebook.

Otherwise, it's just something I look at once or twice a week when I'm bored
and want to see what people are up to. I never connect any mobile games or
other apps with my FB account and if a program or site requires FB login, I
stop using it.

------
owlish
As developers, many of us work everyday on increasing page hits, creating more
engaging user experiences. What are the ethical implications of this? At what
point do we become responsible for users' addictive behavior?

~~~
amelius
As long as you, the developer, feel that you contribute positively to society,
then I would say there is nothing wrong with engaging users.

------
ywecur
Maybe not the perfect solution, but I created a bot that notifies me when "a
lot" of activity occurs on my friends Rocket.chat server. Basically when more
than 3 people write more than 5 messages each, pretty quickly.

I've found that I rarely check it anymore since I'm always notified when
something interesting is happening or when people specifically want to reach
me; I'm no longer afraid I'll "miss out".

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mikeash
Put a rat in a box. Connect a lever to a pellet dispenser. When the rat pushes
lever, it gets a food pellet. This trains the rat to push the lever.

Now modify the lever to only give a food pellet sometimes. Sometimes there's
nothing. This turns out to be _much more effective_ at getting the rat to
compulsively press the lever.

Now look at the internet, and services with frequent updates like Facebook,
Twitter, or even HN. Sometimes you push the lever and get a reward, and
sometimes you don't, effectively training the user to compulsively check.

------
ccvannorman
I am more addicted to Hacker News than most apps.

~~~
ywecur
Me too. I wanted to switch to only reading Hacker Monthly, but sadly it's been
discontinued :(

~~~
jonzfisher
I had this problem as well, so now I just get the weekly newsletter of popular
Hacker News posts through usepanda.com. I get the top six posts of HackerNews
and DesignerNews.

------
ywecur
>Addiction may not even be the right term, at least psychologically. According
to Rosen, the reason we check our phones constantly is not to gain
pleasure—the telltale sign of true addictive behavior—but something else
potentially even more worrisome for our well-being.

I might be completely wrong here, but I read about a study where mice were
deprived of dopamine (chemical responsible for motivating behavior). There
they shows that the mice would rather starve to death than seek out food and
water. However, if food was placed in their mouths they would swallow it and
gain pleasure.

I believe apps are a perfect example of addiction in this case since they
create compulsive behaviors without giving pleasure.

------
excinit
hey all - i wrote this piece and really happy to here its sparking discussion
here. Let me know if you have any questions, either here, or
twitter.com/excinit

------
rambos
For social its all about validation and self-worth.

Like, favorite, share, subscribe, follow, some type of hierarchy system.

That's how you get people addicted.

