
How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds - prostoalex
https://medium.com/@tristanharris/how-technology-hijacks-peoples-minds-from-a-magician-and-google-s-design-ethicist-56d62ef5edf3
======
lars
Wow, I'm glad this was posted.

I think the way we use technology today will be looked back on the same way we
look back at naive cigarette smoking in the 1950s.

Modern app design isn't about creating things that are good for the user, but
about creating want in the user. This is a problem.

For example, there are several studies showing that using Facebook in general
makes people less happy. User happiness just happens to not be be necessary
for Facebook to be a successful business.

Go to a developer conference by one of the big tech companies, and speakers
generally aren't talking about doing good things for the user. They'll use
euphemisms like "increasing engagement". There's concepts like "permission
priming", psychological tricks to get the user to do what you want. There's
books written about how to maximize app addictiveness. It's stuff that mildly
screws over the user, and it guides the product designs that affect the lives
of billions of people. It's not good.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
I think the more apt metaphor is lead in Roman pipes. They knew lead exposure
made you crazy but they still used it in their pipes, on their plates - and it
drove them mad.

After the planet has warmed beyond a point of no return, after antibiotic
resistant bacteria make routine surgery a life-or-death decision, after we
have squandered away our resources and used what little we had left to wage
futile wars, we will find ourselves looking back at these Bernaysian
psychological tricks of mass consumerism...and I wonder if we will use the
same excuse then as we do today:

"But it was good for GDP!"

~~~
reasonattlm
The lead hypothesis for Roman decline is disputed.

[http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/04/lead-pipes-
pollute...](http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/04/lead-pipes-polluted-
roman-drinking-water)

The demise of antibiotics is much overwrought. It won't happen, since
researchers have basically solved the problem of cost-effectively finding an
unlimited supply of new ones.

[https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26701](https://www.edge.org/response-
detail/26701)

In general people like seeing doom everywhere. To the extent this motivates
some of them to do something about it, this is probably good. But it is very
irritating when the doomsayers don't adjust their doomsaying based upon
current scientific work.

~~~
closed
> But it is very irritating when the doomsayers don't adjust their doomsaying
> based upon current scientific work.

I love this line. It's like somebody just submitted doomsaying homework, and
you are not taking issue with their premise per se, but taking off points for
the sources they used.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Heh, yeah. It's like talking to climate "skeptics" \- people who believe
climate change is real but disagree on the level of human agency. You can show
them graph after graph of greenhouse gas emissions being pumped into the
atmosphere at alarming rates and they'll say "I'm not that alarmed, we don't
know how much of an impact it will have." Meanwhile, coral reefs are
bleaching, Florida is flooding, and we are experiencing record heatwaves AND
snowfall. At the very least, it doesn't take much to make clear that we should
still DO SOMETHING.

~~~
cpt1138
But what? The problem with the constant doom is that we get exhausted. At
least in the US all we truly care about is war and old people (looking at
where the money goes; [http://whatwepayfor.com/](http://whatwepayfor.com/)).
The problem with the doom sayers is they have no solutions or actionable items
that we can say yes or no to. Its just lions and tigers and bears 24/7.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
I'll give you an example. I live in Ithaca, NY, not far from some of the
richest shale gas deposits in the United States. This town is also ground zero
for fracking hatred. Post something awful about fracking, and people will eat
that shit up whether it's true or not. I know, because I was one of them.

Then I started dating a hydrogeologist. As luck would have it, her very MS
thesis was on fracking. She dispelled rumors left and right: "fracking causes
earthquakes!" \- actually it's poorly built injection wells and wastewater
storage that causes earthquakes; "fracking injects radioactives and other
poisons into our groundwater!" \- nope, the fluid itself is relatively benign
(except for a single phase of high-concentration HF/HCL) and the radioactives
are actually pumped UP from the crust, not the other way around. And as much
as we hippies like to believe - the 60s/70s never really ended in Ithaca - our
town is powered by dirty, dirty coal, not magical fairy dust; natural gas
would hugely reduce our CO2 emissions.

Point is, it's fair to be scared. Improper fracking CAN cause earthquakes, it
CAN poison groundwater, but it is very obvious where and how it happens, and
it can be regulated and prevented.

The only real problems arise when people refuse to reconsider their opinions
in the face of facts.

~~~
illumin8
> Point is, it's fair to be scared. Improper fracking CAN cause earthquakes,
> it CAN poison groundwater, but it is very obvious where and how it happens,
> and it can be regulated and prevented.

Everywhere I've seen fracking it's been almost completely unregulated. The US
MMS (Minerals Management) has been called a "culture of corruption" by
whistleblowers:
[http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/14/oil.whistleblower/index.htm...](http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/14/oil.whistleblower/index.html)

What makes you think fracking would be regulated in any reasonable manner,
given our current bought and paid for government?

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Aside from (impoverished) pockets in the Southern Tier, upstate-and-downstate
New Yorkers generally approve of Gov. Cuomo's moratorium on fracking, not to
mention the fact that some of the best shale gas deposits are underneath NYCs
watersheds. There's no chance fracking will get a green light in this state
without some pretty hardcore regulation.

Not to mention, the kinds of folks that tend to "buy and pay for" our
government live and work in the tri-state area. Don't expect them to risk
their health and property values anytime soon.

Equating fracking risk with poor regulation is like assuming moneyed
resistance to fracking in NY will work everywhere.

Don't let the boogeyman scare you away from cold, hard, scientific fact:
hydraulic fracturing, when done properly, is safe and cost-effective. The
regulatory culture surrounding it has a huge effect - nobody's denying that -
but the real risks are not scientific or engineering: they're political.

------
greggman
I had a mildly negative reaction to this article which seems different from
most people's reactions here

Yelp example: I get that yelp is limiting my options but what did I do before
yelp? Pretty much I just went to the 4 or 5 places I already knew instead of
seeing if there was something new nearby. I tried hundreds of new places
because of recommendations from Google Maps or Yelp that I likely would not
have tried otherwise. Certainly not before I had this thing in my pocket that
let me research at the moment of desire instead of having the plan ahead

Similarly I look for meetups and have been to way more activities that I would
have gone to in the past.

On the slot machine idea: Before smartphones and apps I'd flip through a
magazines and hope there'd be something interesting. Before digital TV back
when channel surfing tuned into each channel immediately instead of taking 3-5
seconds I'd flip through channels hoping to discover an interesting program.
When I buy a book I'm gambling it's going to catch me. When I go to a new
restaurant I'm gambling it's going to be delicious (it often isn't)

I guess I don't really see the difference between that and many of the things
listed on that list.

I also do uninstall apps. I've un-followed 90% of my connections to keep it my
feed actually relevant to me.

Sure I do spend too much time on (in my own opinion) on the net for various
things. hopefully I can keep it under control.

It got more scary for me toward the end where he seemed to be calling for
government regulation. A digital "bill of rights". An FDA for Tech. No doubt
he's assuming he'll be on the committees to decide what's best for everyone
else.

~~~
phantarch
There's definitely positive value in the services and apps that you mention,
otherwise people wouldn't begin using them initially.

I think the key difference between the services and living life with "Pre-
Internet" substitutes is that all of the services have been designed and
engineered to elicit a certain usage.

When you use something that was designed, there's a certain set of axioms
governing that thing. You've got to buy into someone else's interpretation of
value. If you're aware that the other person's interpretation is different
from your own, then you'll be much more likely to have the self-control needed
to interpret its value for yourself. The danger is that most people don't do
that and as a result fall prey to their own assumptions based on what they
were told is valuable.

The trickle of pre-internet information doesn't compare to the firehose we
have today. There's not one single solution and I agree that a governance of
these ethical ideals will be tricky no matter what form it takes.

~~~
themartorana
I'd rather have the fire hose with the bad that comes with it than what came
before - severely limited information, often old or stale, often requiring
travel to find it.

Having the wealth of the world's information LITERALLY at your fingertips is
going to come with some bad. But holy moly is it just so much better this way.

------
Jtsummers
Kind of interesting idea about how our tools (generic) present us with limited
menus, and effectively restrict our options.

Facebook has expanded (barely) the options for basic responses to posts (no
longer just like, but also a handful of emoticons to express laughter, anger,
sadness, etc.). Not as full an option as when using the comment box, but for
quick responses it allows for greater expressiveness. At least people don't
have to "like" the tragic news of their friend's family deaths anymore.

But then look at Allo, announced from Google yesterday, with its @google bot
that will help people decide how to make basic, trivial responses to pictures
posted to threads. (I'll try to find the link later, but the demo was with a
graduation photo, and a few suggested responses like "You look great!"
"Congratulations, so happy for you" or something similar).

By pushing the job of coming up with options to tools, like the choice of
restaurants and bars to Yelp, we narrow our worlds. We limit our
expressiveness and creativity.

I don't know that I have a point, just some thoughts.

~~~
ljk
> _the demo was with a graduation photo, and a few suggested responses like
> "You look great!" "Congratulations, so happy for you" or something
> similar)._

Don't know why anyone would actually use features like this. It's very
impersonal and insincere

~~~
Jtsummers
People already just like photos like that. Or say simply "happy birthday" to
everyone when Facebook tells them it's time. It's a small step from this state
to a slightly extended set of canned responses to pick from.

~~~
Riseed
The "Happy birthday" messages were nice the first time (circa "thefacebook"),
but the more I thought about it the more depressing and creepy it became. I
hid my birthday, then closed my wall, and then left facebook entirely. Now
it's only sincere messages from a close few, which feels like much more.

~~~
ljk
definitely agree, on the other hand it's funny to see people who put fake
birthdays on facebook actually getting the "happy birthday!" messages on the
fake date

------
imgabe
The bit about choices reminds about the soda cup debacle from when Bloomberg
proposed limiting the size of soda containers that some venues could sell.

Everyone griped about how it limited their "freedom of choice", but nobody
asked about _why_ those particular sizes were the choices available in the
first place. 7-11 and others decided that they could add a $0.05 more soda and
charge $0.25 more and make more money. People would buy it because look, you
get 50% more for only a quarter!

Meanwhile the choice of buying less was never presented as an option.

~~~
pessimizer
> Meanwhile the choice of buying less was never presented as an option.

What do you mean here? There were always multiple sizes of soda. Bloomberg was
the one who was introducing the restriction, requiring someone who wanted more
than a particular size to buy it in two separate cups. I must be parsing this
incorrectly.

~~~
Nav_Panel
In NYC, most soda drinkers are stopping by their corner bodega/deli and buying
a bottle, then walking/taking the subway somewhere. I feel like in this
particular case, the goal was to force _soda manufacturers_ to sell 16oz
bottles rather than 20oz bottles, thus reducing the amount most people consume
in a single purchase.

EDIT: I'm wrong, a reply below clarified the intent and also that bottles were
exempt.

Back when I drank soda regularly, I often felt like 20oz was a little bit too
much. A 12oz can felt about right, but in NYC it's a lot less convenient
because you must finish it immediately upon opening.

~~~
pessimizer
That makes total sense for bottled soda, but for 7-11 sodas (which were what
was mentioned in the comment I replied to), or fast food sodas (which were
mentioned often at the time the law was proposed), there were always various
sizes. They got cheaper by volume as they got larger, but 1) that's the same
as every product, and 2) there's overhead in cup and the labor of filling it
that stays fairly flat as the size increases.

Wasn't the Bloomberg law intentionally meant to corral people into drinking
less soda by forcing people who wanted to drink more to carry two cups? The
law, rather than the opposition to it seems like an explicit, intentional
example of the OP.

edit: I don't drink soda, and I'm not a libertarian.

~~~
Nav_Panel
I don't have a refutation for your first point regarding fast food, although
according to Wikipedia[0], 7-11, being a grocer and thus state-regulated,
would be excluded from the sizing law.

> The law, rather than the opposition to it seems like an explicit,
> intentional example of the OP.

Indeed. However, we must note that using techniques described in the OP aren't
necessarily bad: merely that when the values of these large (not-always-tech)
companies do not align with their customers, consumers are manipulated toward
actions that ultimately run counter to their (presumed) values, such as their
physical, financial, and emotional well-being.

If a government, which ideally represents the values of its constituency,
chose to regulate using these same principles, the result could be a net
benefit for society.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_Drinks_Portion_Cap_Rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_Drinks_Portion_Cap_Rule)

------
bikamonki
Does anyone else feel the slot machine effect here on HN is the karma
displayed on the top-right? After a submission or comment, is that number the
first thing you check when you come back to the site?

~~~
hypertexthero
[https://blog.codinghorror.com/because-reading-is-
fundamental...](https://blog.codinghorror.com/because-reading-is-
fundamental-2/)

> If I have learned anything from the Internet, it is this: be very, very
> careful when you put a number next to someone's name. Because people will do
> whatever it takes to make that number go up.

~~~
zymhan
Coming from one of the founders of Stack Exchange, no less.

On Reddit, HN, and SE, I'm always checking to see if I have any more points
and any replies first.

------
danr4
I enjoyed the article.

The most important takeaway for me was " now companies have a responsibility
to reduce these effects by converting intermittent variable rewards into less
addictive, more predictable ones with better design"

I think most of the techniques listed actually cause pain for users, the same
way addictions do. I think a lot of people are aware at some level that they
are giving up to temptation and it makes them feel worse about themselves.

On the contrary, when an app makes a prediction and nails it, I tend to
appreciate it much more, and feel it helped me rather than lured me. My only
gripe with predictability is it usually entails giving up a big portion of my
privacy.

In my idealist mind somewhere in the future, personal privacy will be a
default state of mind for service providers. Total self privacy combined with
life analytics (Lifelytics?) which empower streamlining ones routine is a
dream I hope I witness come true.

~~~
majewsky
Exactly. I have wondered for a while why I find predictive AI services
frightening and even disgusting.

I realized that it is through apparent unpredictability of my actions that I
perceive my own free will (or at least the illusion of it, depending on one's
philosophy). If a computer can acurately predict my actions, it feels like my
free will is taken away from me. And free will is one of the few things that
truly sets us apart from mere automatons. (At least IMHO.)

~~~
anchpop
If your free will can be taken away by a machine predicting what you'll be
interested in, you never really had it in the first place

------
blabla_blublu
My 2 cents on this(opinion) and how I am struggling to cope with tech usage in
my life.

I noticed that I spend a disproportionately high volume of time "consuming"
than "creating". Recently I have been making efforts to create more. writing,
drawing, painting. Something, anything so that the brain can spend some time
coming up with new things instead of just reading/passively participating.

Technology has empowered a lot of us to create more, but it has also played a
huge part in 'consumption', since it is so easy to swipe up and get the next
article and the next and the next. Not to forget passive reading where I just
skim through without actually paying any kind of attention to detail.

~~~
shostack
Yeah, consumption vs. creation is a great way to sum it up.

By and large I've cut WAY back on my video game playing (like, from several
hours a week down to maybe a half hour of mobile gaming in bed at night) and
tried to replace it with "healthier" activities like learning guitar and
gardening.

Oddly enough, I don't feel like I have any more free time in my life. I'm
wondering if I've filled the gap with more consumption via Reddit/HN/reading
books enough to make up for the difference.

And that's the rub, because a lot of the stuff I read online or in books isn't
garbage. HN has some interesting topics, my Reddit feed is lots of interesting
stuff for the most part now, and I'm reading a great book on investing.
Ultimately though those are still consumptive activities.

------
kreutz
This is not specific to technology and can essentially be traced back to
capitalism for every industry. Businesses have nothing to gain by making
product decisions around "will this help the customers well being". If it does
not help them sell more, do more, make more it does not matter. All consumer
facing companies apps, games, food, travel they are all gamified to grow the
business regardless of whether there is a government agency to influence them.
I'm all for making product and business decisions around these ideas but these
psychological tricks have been applied to consumers for decades long before
the Internet.

------
siglesias
Anybody else struck by the irony of the glaring "Don't miss Tristan Harris's
next story" dialog at the bottom of the article?

Note the verbiage exploiting Fear of Missing Something Important.

~~~
hughw
Ironic, yes, and sad.

------
wslh
I was really interested in the article until I read: "I spent the last three
years as Google’s Design Ethicist...". In the article he is focusing at the
application level but the issue is at the form factor level.

One simple example: if you give to a child a Simon game app based on the
original Simon game [1] he/she will probably end up switching to YouTube and
watching stupid videos but if you give him/her the "limited" form factor
version of the game the child will have more fun.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_(game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_\(game\))

~~~
nerdponx
Limited how?

~~~
Jtsummers
I had to reread the OP a couple times but I finally got it.

Give a child a _smartphone_ with Simon, even opened to the app, and they'll
wander off to YouTube or something else.

Give a child the _game_ Simon which only functions as the game, and they'll be
enthralled.

------
lilcarlyung
Sooo... These are the things that I need to do to build a successful app?

~~~
joslin01
Yes, but if you don't align well-enough with a genuine human desire/need, your
brand will slowly but surely rot away. See Buzzfeed.

------
nnd
Nothing new here. If anyone is interested to learn about these mechanisms in
death there is a great book "Hooked" by Nir Eval.

The real problem here are the users. If they keep unconsciously falling for
the same tricks over and over again, rather than taking a stand and rejecting
manipulative products, there is no incentive for product makers to create
product which are _not_ manipulative. You can compare it to eating junk food,
rather than choosing healthy options.

~~~
flurpitude
As with addictive drugs, the real problem doesn't wholly lie on either side.
You can't blame the users entirely for the fact that people choose to supply a
harmful product for profit, but neither can you wholly blame the suppliers for
being tempted to do so when users lap it up. Regardless of the blame question,
it will improve when (if) both sides change their behaviour, or when either
side changes unilaterally and forces a change from the other side.

~~~
nnd
Addictive drugs is a good comparison. The supply stills exists because it's
profitable and because of suppliers who don't have any moral problems with
providing the supply in the first place, for the sake of profit. I remember I
watched a documentary on Mexican cartels, and their excuse is simply because
they don't know any better.

In the case of technology, it seems a sacrifice has to be made, to refrain
from using said manipulative strategies, and thus losing profit.

I still don't quite understand your point about consumers. Assuming that you
have free will, it's your own choice to either use those products or not. You
can't blame companies manipulating your behavior if you opted in in the first
place.

------
AndrewKemendo
This is classic game theory.

You lose as a company if you don't build in these addictive features. So
everyone does it because as he made clear, attention is the currency of
business currently. All of these companies, and new companies would have to
agree not to build these behaviors in.

The idea of an FDA or bill of rights for technology is great in the holistic
macro sense, but I think unrealistic as it is not aligned with the interests
of companies.

It's the same with any externalities, be it pollution or labor exploitation -
things that have clear nexus with bad outcomes but struggle to gain traction
around limiting because of overwhelming business interests.

~~~
tim333
I agree a FDA for tech addictiveness probably won't happen. Now a Chrome
extension to block much of it similar to adblock. That would be doable.

~~~
firebones
Shame beats it. See up-thread. Once people start seeing mindless staring at
phones as the public health equivalent of smoking, things will improve.

~~~
tim333
As someone who spends much of the day staring at screens (more macbook than
phone) I'm not sure that's going to happen in a hurry. I guess it's hard to
distinguish the mindless staring from learning something useful. I can't even
figure which category my own time reading the latest Trump craziness falls
into though probably more the mindless category. (see also
[http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/admit-it-you-people-want-
se...](http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/admit-it-you-people-want-see-how-far-
goes-dont-you-50895))

------
Animats
Hm. Maybe we need a system for mail and messaging which puts most items into a
bin to be read later. Once every N hours, it shows you the "later" items.

(One real headache is the demise of third-party messaging clients. You can't
write a Twitter client any more, or a Facebook client, or a WhatsApp client,
or a Slack client. This is a big problem, because the vendor clients work for
the man, not for you. With email, you're still in control, but not with the
proprietary systems.)

~~~
gruez
I imagine that this could be done on android by batching notifications for
display at specified intervals. Not sure about iOS (without jailbreak) though.

------
AngrySkillzz
This is what everyone means when they say "the medium is the message."

------
Mendenhall
There are companies that have whole teams of "addiction specialists" that some
video game companies hire to give talks to their producers. I know this from
personal experience, they are literally trying to make you addicted and have
that goal in mind.

~~~
firebones
Name names. Or at least LinkedIn titles!

------
tlb
How can one separate the inherent addictiveness of social approval (which we
evolved to cope with) from the added addictiveness due to slot-machine
rewards?

(Discrete measures of approval, like a count of Likes, add their own variance
in addition to the inherent variability of how much people liked something.
That discretization is a property of the digital system, and adds the variance
of a binomial distribution.)

So when you say something IRL, you can gauge a lot of fine gradations of
approval in the way people react. But online, where you get a small count of
upvotes, the quantization adds variance and makes it more addictive.

The added variance is most significant at small sample sizes. People whose
submissions get hundreds of votes might find the process less addictive than
people whose submissions get a handful of votes.

Would HN be less addictive if the upvote process was more analog, somehow?
Say, by adding up the duration people held down the mouse button for?

~~~
petra
Btw, if we're talking about variance, reddit adds variance on top of the real
comment scores, and they say it's to "fight spam". Maybe the real reason is
addictiveness.

------
tdaltonc
> We need our smartphones, notifications screens and web browsers to be
> exoskeletons for our minds and interpersonal relationships that put our
> values, not our impulses, first. People’s time is valuable. And we should
> protect it with the same rigor as privacy and other digital rights.

I think that the only way we can do this is for out technology to make our
values impulsive.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
The challenge is that there is no one set of "values" that we can agree on as
a people.

~~~
tdaltonc
That's not such a big problem. I think we can get good an inferring values
from behavior and using values in marketing. Then if you download an app that
has positioned itself with certain values, the designer can reasonably assume
that you hold those values.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Disagree. People are terrible at aligning behaviors with stated "values."

Economists look at this dissonance as "revealed preferences." While it may be
the best thing we have to _describe_ behavior, it's not well aligned with
self-image - which is really what stated preferences aka "values" are.

As a result, designing systems around revealed preferences might be
advantageous in the short term - it conflicts with people's long term self
concept.

This ends up being a normative economics (< a rare thing any more) and
philosophy question.

Some people in the AI safety community have explored this idea of
consolidating values, as the seed goals for artificial general intelligence -
but it proved to be impossible.

~~~
tdaltonc
I'm super familiar with the problems of revealed preferences (that's literally
chapter 1 of my PhD thesis). But we don't need to naively interpret every
action as an expression of 'values.' For example, consider netflix playlists.
I shouldn't infer your values from what's in your playlist, but I probably can
inver your values from the movies that go in to your playlist but never get
watched. You wish you were the kind of person who watched that documentary on
the failing school system. That's a value inferred from behavior.

------
amelius
> That’s why I spent the last three years as Google’s Design Ethicist caring
> about how to design things in a way that defends a billion people’s minds
> from getting hijacked.

Every time I see the doodle, I have the feeling I'm being hijacked. After
playing with the doodle I often forget what I came to Google for. Just saying.

------
xufi
It saddens me whenever I go out wit my friends and I try to have a
conversation, that everyone is glued to their phones and can't have face-face
conversation.

~~~
jacquesm
Find different friends. Not everybody is like that.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Exactly. This is one of those things many people assume and it causes them
problems. The assumption that people these days always stare into their
phones. Some people do that, some do it a lot less, some barely, and some
never. Reality offers more choice.

Maybe OP should write a post on intersection of common assumptions with
marketing tricks. There were a few embedded in here. Our assumptions get us
just as often, though.

------
tmaly
Great post, the whole Yelp part really spoke to me as I have been working on
my own side project to help me find better food dishes. I am trying to wrap my
mind around this slot machine concept as I really do not want people using my
project like this.

Any suggestions on UI would be greatly welcome.

------
jonstokes
First thought: I gotta get off all of these apps. I always knew they were
messing with me, and now I know how!

Second thought: Our UX designer needs to read this ASAP... it's basically a
"best practices" guide for making a social app that shows "traction".

~~~
whatsreal
I had the same first thought, but I think it needs to be tempered somewhat.
Some apps you can turn off notifications on. For example, Gmail on my phone I
have turned off notifications for my work account, but not my personal
account. I've also filtered what comes into my "Primary" inbox heavily so I
only see emails that have some legitimate urgency on the phone. Everything
else disappears into tabs and labels that I check when I want to.

If Gmail didn't make that set of options available to me I would delete it off
my phone. I have yet to receive such an important email that it would have had
horrendous results to not know or reply immediately. I keep the limited set of
emails I do see simply because I enjoy the convenience and politeness of being
able to reply to my parents, wife, and friends from my phone.

------
jamesmiller5
Similarly resonates with to another great article "The Slow Web" \-
[http://jackcheng.com/the-slow-web](http://jackcheng.com/the-slow-web) .

------
cynoclast
I loved the part about the "friction required to enact choices" bit. Like how
it's outstandingly easy to get a bank account, and how as a part of the law
regarding privacy, they're required to provide a method for you to opt out of
them selling your data, which involves them sending you a paper privacy
notice, and to opt out you have to send them a written letter (no form is
provided), to an address you have to write out yourself, and at your own cost.

That always infuriated me.

It should be as easy as signing up.

~~~
majewsky
I think Germany has some legislation (or a court decision) that requires that
customers be able to void their contracts over the same communication channel
where the contract was initially created.

------
knowaveragejoe
One nitpick: maybe it's just the grocery stores near me, but the Pharmacies
are almost always located near the front right by where you walk in. Milk is
often in the back however.

~~~
kefka
Milk in the back or side makes sense though. The milk and dairy area is
usually front-facing doors from the huge walk-in refrigerator.

It wouldn't be smart to put a huge walk-in fridge in the center or front of
the store, given the recurring shipments from cold storage trucks to fridge.

... However locally, our Kroger(s) has a small case that holds 15 gallons of
milk, and a shelf of common bread up front and center.

~~~
antognini
There was an interesting episode on Planet Money a little while back about why
milk is in the back of a supermarket. They had two people give very different
explanations: Russ Roberts (an economist) argued that it was just simpler to
maintain the cold chain with milk (and meat) in the back of the store since
that's where trucks unload, and Michael Pollan (a food writer) argued that it
was a behavioral economics trick to make people walk through the whole store.

That said, I've also noticed that in many larger store they have a small case
of frequently bought perishables at the front of the store.

[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/07/23/334076398/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/07/23/334076398/episode-555-why-
is-the-milk-in-the-back-of-the-store)

~~~
tunap
Former merchandiser here. Staples are always furthest from entrance and then
separated(ie: bread one back corner, milk opposite) to make most people walk
the entire store to get what they need. And that 'convenience' case in the
front... take a look at the expiration dates on the products in said case,
that product needs to be sold faster than the stock in the back.

Edit: PS: That economist, it's his job to rationalize the action monetarily.
I/we/most people realize, if returns could be increeased, hamburger would be
in a cooler next to the checkout.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its startling to see how evil insinuates itself into normal people gradually
so they don't even notice. The store managers probably think this is a
standard practice so its ok. Not a pointless waste of customers' time and
energy in the cynical hope to manipulate them into buying what they don't
want. I plan on resenting my local mega market in future every time I make the
hike to the back of their block-long store for a half-gallon of 1%.

~~~
tunap
Sadly, the store/department managers have no say in the matter. It's all laid
out at corporate. Most managers inside the brick & mortar roll with it no
matter how nonsensical some edicts are, some were/are bitter. They all know
they are ultimately expendable.

------
ca98am79
> Imagine a digital “bill of rights” outlining design standards that forced
> the products used by billions of people to support empowering ways for them
> to navigate toward their goals.

This scares me

------
kercker
The author apparently has his own agenda, after seeing the time well spent
link all over the article.

------
Kinnard
The menu options metaphor applies so well to government. Especially given our
current predicament.

------
henrik_w
I just finished reading "Deep Work" by Cal Newport - great book. The central
theme of the book is that you need distraction-free focus to do your best work
(especially relevant for programmers I think). Social media goes against this
- constantly checking HN, Twitter or FB breaks this focus. He basically
recommends to quit altogether. A good start is to try and go a full day with
checking any social media - it's harder than it sounds.

~~~
mazuhl
Same here and I've just started reading "Hooked" by Nir Eyal which is kind if
a counter/companion to "Deep Work". Following Newport's logic I am looking at
optimising engagmement (for a paid/freemium app/SaaS website) as "help people
stay in their flow state, make the interactions smooth and non-demanding, then
get out of the way". Part of the book seems suggests that having tools is fine
as long as the tool doesn't too much extra baggage or make to process of using
it too much about itself (drawing you away from the goal/original focus).

------
forgottenpass
Apparently google has an Ethicist.

 _Ctrl-F: Ad_

Huh. Zero mentions of the thing that manipulates people by design.

I guess I don't blame him, because even with a blind spot to ads it would seem
Google still doesn't give two shits about his input. He explicitly calls out a
problem YouTube feature, which he certainly would have voiced internally
before externally. And he doesn't work at Google anymore.

Google must want results from ethicists the way tobacco companies of old
wanted results from in-house scientists.

~~~
eric_h
> Apparently google has an Ethicist.

Well, _had_. From his bio snippet at the bottom: "Ex-Design Ethicist & Product
Philosopher @ Google"

~~~
nissimk
It sounded to me like a euphemism for hanging out on the roof waiting for your
non compete agreement term to run out.

~~~
gohrt
I don't know that competition is so heavy in the technological ethics
industry.

Also, California.

------
excalibur
He had me until the end.

"People’s time is valuable." True

"And we should protect it with the same rigor as privacy and other digital
rights." LOLOLOLOL

~~~
marxidad
Are you laughing because privacy and other digital rights aren't currently
protected as rigorously as they should be?

~~~
excalibur
The notion that they're currently protected at all is a joke.

~~~
majewsky
There are a lot of people out there protecting digital rights and privacy
right now. "Protecting" something is an entirely different thing as it being
"protected" already.

~~~
xg15
Depends who he means with "we". Being a Google Design Ethicist, you'd expect
he means Google - which isn't exactly well-known for protecting privacy.

~~~
akaij
I think you missed the last bit of the text:

> Ex-Design Ethicist & Product Philosopher @ Google

Ex.

~~~
xg15
Well, that's true. Though we don't know exactly why he quit.

------
astazangasta
It's not "technology" that is hijacking people's minds, it's specific
companies who are doing it. You don't blame the magician's hat for fooling
you.

The problem, as usual, is that technology is slave to the boring, insipid
demands of capital to get us to click on ads and purchase more snow-pants.

------
devy
Tristan Harris, the OP of this medium post, listed a table of comparisons
between what's today's engaging/addictive/time sink product characteristics
vs. time well spent products he advocates on his main project site[1]. Of all
the 11 points, two of them has the most profound sociological impact or
inertia:

* Success Metrics: measure success by net positive contributions rather than interactions

* Business Model: use non-engagement based advertising rather than engagement advertising.

I fully applaud Tristan's vision and mission but skeptical of how quickly
companies, VCs and society can adopt it.

[1]: [http://timewellspent.io/](http://timewellspent.io/)

------
lisper
This is not just a problem at the consumer level. My entire career I have been
told that I couldn't do X because it wasn't "industry standard" or "best
practice" or some other code word for "not on the menu."

~~~
stinkytaco
As a manager it's an interesting balancing act. There are reasons things are
done the way they are done and sometimes they are "because we've always done
it that way" but more often it's because we've done it enough to understand
something someone new to the company or industry doesn't. It's hard to know
where to let go and where to draw the line.

I try to provide an environment where new people can 1. Try an idea and watch
them fall on their face because they didn't understand best practices. 2. Then
try to encourage understanding of those best practices and how they can be
improved and change slowly to minimize impact or unexpected consequences.

~~~
lisper
I applaud your willingness to let people try new things, but the way you
describe it seems to assume that all new ideas are bound to fail. They aren't.
Different is not necessarily better, but better is necessarily different.

~~~
stinkytaco
My point is that _most_ new ideas do fail. People coming in don't realize that
and it creates quite a bit of resentment. But people learn from mistakes and
giving them the opportunity to fail is a good thing.

After that they can take the time to learn why best practices are best
practices. From that understanding we can talk new ideas.

I've had so many employees come in convinced their idea was the best idea and
then be frustrated and resentful that we wouldn't immediately start using it
reciting the mantra that we do it "because it was always done that way".

------
marknutter
Interesting read, but is the author being serious when they suggest that the
FDA should be setting standards for how software UX is designed? I can't even
begin to imagine how much of an unmitigated disaster that would be.

~~~
alerting
No need to worry -- FDA people are probably addicted to those software as
well, if not worse

------
thaw13579
The article does a good job of showing examples, but strangely, it doesn't
connect this in any way with the vast related research in psychology and
economics. This makes me skeptical of the claims of expertise...

------
Lxr
> But grocery stores want to maximize how much people buy, so they put the
> pharmacy and the milk at the back of the store.

Early competitors of Google thought that accurate search results only served
to drive users away from their site and search was therefore an unimportant
part of an overall "Internet company". It would be interesting to see a
grocery chain with the philosophy of "find what you want really fast" rather
than "make it really difficult to find what you want so you spend longer here"
\- it could be very successful by the same analogy.

------
vicbrooker
I can't see a way for this style of design to be feasible that doesn't rely on
a subscription-based business model.

As long as users allow free + advertising generally be the way to for build a
dominant tech company then I would assume anyone that tries to compete by not
optimising for advertising (eg. reducing friction for users) will lose. Which
is a damn shame.

Based on my limited knowledge of the history of news media, theres a cycle
between free + advertising and paid + high quality. Intuitively it should
apply to other verticals too, and I hope that, in reality, it does.

~~~
majewsky
For many kinds of services it can work in parallel. For example, there are ad-
supported mail providers like Google, while I consciously chose a
subscription-based mail provider (posteo.de) whom I trust to act in my best
interest.

The only thing where this would not work so well is social networks, due to
the network effect.

------
sbierwagen
A note of slight relevant interest: fastmail.com's native client doesn't
actually have a manual refresh button. You only get a notification for a new
mail if the server pushes one to you.

~~~
xg15
A manual refresh button apparently doesn't help, because now you stumble from
the "constant interruptions" trap into the "slot machine" trap...

------
grok2
I think this is not necessarily right -- the existing technology _limits_
peoples choice and directs them to behave in a certain way sometimes, but it's
not like people don't know they are being manipulated or that they are being
provided limited choices, but they live with it what's available if what's
available is satisfactory enough. But if it doesn't really satisfy them,
people do go out of their way to get what they want...mostly. Atleast that's
what I see from a data-point of 1.

------
tsunamifury
It's called "railroading" and it's been around forever. The only new trick is
to add more options that still railroad you in the same general direction.

The problem is human minds are smarter than you think and they tend to
disengage when they sense this and they strongly want to get off the rails.
The user does this by quitting and/or deleting the service. Over time you
realize it's best to give the user all their options and they are more likely
to stay using your product.

~~~
dredmorbius
I've certainly been railroaded out of specific retailers, away from specific
products, and off of specific Internet / tech sites or concepts on account of
this behavior.

I draw attention to the negatives and expressly flag, block, or otherwise mark
the antipattern.

HN's increasing practice to deprecate anti-ad-blocking, clickbait, and the
like is a positive counter-signal.

------
AlexandrB
Some of the design anti-patterns he's describing smell a lot like the broken
window fallacy [1]. Sure, apps can get big on getting users addicted and
"engaged", but there's no _actual_ economic benefit being produced by such
design - just tons of opportunity cost to users.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window)

~~~
bognition
I'm not sure I follow why the fallacy applies. But for lots of smartphone apps
there is an economic benefit. Making your app mildly addictive increases your
weekly active users as well as the amount of time they spend in the app. These
are two gold star metrics used by lots of VCs.

~~~
AngrySkillzz
He is implying there is no economic benefit to the users, not for the app in
general but for engaging with particular bits of offensive design. If a user
actually sat down and consciously decided whether or not to take a particular
action, they likely would have gone the other way. See autoplaying videos. You
probably didn't want to watch that next video, but if Google/Netflix gets
their way you'll do it anyway for any number of psychological reasons. But
that next video was not something you wanted, potentially it's value to you is
zero or negative because of opportunity cost. That won't stop you from
watching it though, if they can manipulate you and distract you from making
that decision consciously.

------
ljk
Very eye-opening read.

few random thoughts:

> _Hijack #7: Instant Interruption vs. “Respectful” Delivery... By contrast,
> Apple more respectfully lets userse toggle "Read Receipts" on or off_

Unfortunately iPhone has a new feature to reply to messages immediately even
in the lock screen, looks like everyone is guilty of this

> _“now that you know I’ve seen the message, I feel even more obligated to
> respond.”_

always tried to purposefully not respond right away even when it said I read
it already, but it does feel weird/rude

~~~
floatboth
Replying from the lock screen is good though?? You reply from the lock screen,
so you don't unlock the phone, so you don't start doing other things than
replying?

~~~
ljk
oh yeah that feature is definitely very useful it just reminded me of what the
author mentioned about replying

------
danvoell
Would it be possible to build an app interface which interacts with these apps
yet works on behalf of the user? I might be willing to pay for something like
this.

------
dspoka
I love how on one side there is an engineer at google talking about how
addictive technology is and then on the same day someone else at google
releases an api to make mobile phones be even more clever slot machines...
[https://developers.google.com/awareness/?ref=producthunt](https://developers.google.com/awareness/?ref=producthunt)

------
1_2__3
I'd say it's worse, because now that we don't pay for things (ad support ftw?)
the service providers have a much stronger incentive to keep you on the site
than they do to make you happy. They've slowly but surely developed methods
that do exactly that, leaving us all wondering why we spend so much time on
sites/in apps that we don't actually enjoy.

This isn't going to change.

------
gentleteblor
I wonder what impact this knowledge would have on the public's perception of
Silicon Valley (and the tech industry in general) if it got very popular. The
current thinking seems to be something akin to: Oil & Gas Industries bad,
Tobacco Industry bad, Fast Food Industry Bad, Big Pharma bad. Startups Good!
Silicon Valley Good. Tech will fix everything. But it's the same old game.

------
tdaltonc
If you're interested in learning more about these power and how to use them
for good, consider joining us:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/behaviordesign](https://www.reddit.com/r/behaviordesign)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/habitdesign](https://www.reddit.com/r/habitdesign)

------
hypertexthero
A book on a similar theme from before the internet is [Ways of Seeing][1] by
John Berger. The typography, set in bold throughout, doesn't do the text any
favors, but the writing and information is good.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ways_of_Seeing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ways_of_Seeing)

------
urahara
Here is Tristan's post "How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds" in Russian
(translated): [https://wob.su/blog/ekonomika-vnimaniya-vzlom-
umov/](https://wob.su/blog/ekonomika-vnimaniya-vzlom-umov/)

------
Dowwie
Much of this content is associated with the field of Behavior Economics. For
instance, in Hack #1, the author is speaking of what academia has called
"Choice Architecture". For more about that, you can freely access multiple
studies published by Thaler and Sunstein.

------
johnchristopher
tldr; : don't use social networks on your smartphone or you're going to miss
out on real life.

------
thesrcmustflow
> One major reason why is the #1 psychological ingredient in slot machines:
> intermittent variable rewards.

I first came across this concept in a Hello Internet podcast, and it's amazing
how much you see it in just about everything on the internet once you've heard
of it.

------
bcoughlan
> What if your email client gave you empowering choices of ways to respond,
> instead of “what message do you want to type back?”

Communicating directly via writing or talking is the only thing here that is
not driven by limited choices.

It reminds me of the koan about the expressiveness of the command line
compared to point and click:

[http://catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/gui-
programmer.html](http://catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/gui-programmer.html)

One evening, Master Foo and Nubi attended a gathering of programmers who had
met to learn from each other. One of the programmers asked Nubi to what school
he and his master belonged. Upon being told they were followers of the Great
Way of Unix, the programmer grew scornful.

“The command-line tools of Unix are crude and backward,” he scoffed. “Modern,
properly designed operating systems do everything through a graphical user
interface.”

Master Foo said nothing, but pointed at the moon. A nearby dog began to bark
at the master's hand.

“I don't understand you!” said the programmer.

Master Foo remained silent, and pointed at an image of the Buddha. Then he
pointed at a window.

“What are you trying to tell me?” asked the programmer.

Master Foo pointed at the programmer's head. Then he pointed at a rock.

“Why can't you make yourself clear?” demanded the programmer.

Master Foo frowned thoughtfully, tapped the programmer twice on the nose, and
dropped him in a nearby trashcan.

As the programmer was attempting to extricate himself from the garbage, the
dog wandered over and piddled on him.

At that moment, the programmer achieved enlightenment.

------
galfarragem
I found it funny when the author also uses manipulative tricks:

\- he finishes the article with two links (one direct and one indirect) for
the same website;

\- he (or the software) underestimates the time needed to read the article.

------
bobwaycott
I spend most of my internet time on HN. It makes me wish HN tracked this and,
each time I load the page, prompted me with a "Do you really want to spend the
next _n_ minutes here?"

~~~
sah2ed
Well there's something close: the "noprocrast" [1] option in your profile.

[1] Explained here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814695](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814695)

~~~
bobwaycott
Oh, duh. I always forget those are there. :)

------
have_faith
Technology doesn't hijack our minds, people do. It's an age old practice of
blaming the tools.

The logical next step might be to ask well then how do we fix people? (aka,
society). Maximum freedom in society means maximum freedom to be manipulated
by others.

Perhaps ironically, the closer we get to solving world hunger and eradicating
diseases and so on the closer we become to overpopulation and overcrowding our
little planet that once seemed so large. Our ineptitude at cooperating with
each other and our ability to manipulate each other so easily is probably the
only thing stopping highly accelerated human progress, and thus our own
demise.

Absurdism looks more appealing every day.

~~~
emodendroket
Did you read the article? The whole point is that there is a design intended
to encourage "people" to act in ways they didn't really intend.

~~~
have_faith
I read the article. The first line of my reply was in response to the title,
the rest was in response to the rest of the article.

Did you read my post?

------
hughw
/me furiously redesigning our app to be a slot machine....

------
JoeDaDude
I could not help but notice the block at the end that asked one to "Read
Tristan's next blog" with a button to Follow him.

------
tomc1985
Perhaps we are in need of a cultural shift that emphasizes "doing it right"
instead of "making all the money"

------
krosaen
Related: [http://darkpatterns.org](http://darkpatterns.org)

------
frogpelt
timewellspent.io contains a perfect example of indirectly hijacking our
agency: the video play button.

That little triangle has almost become impossible to resist. My two-year-old
can spy it from across the room and he runs over and begs me to click it.

What if we stopped using icons that have programmed our brains?

~~~
ljk
isn't it better to use a universal icon for simple actions like this? e.g.
pointing to wrist for the time, floppy disk icon for saving a file, etc

~~~
frogpelt
I agree. It's better for design that compels certain actions.

But its worse for helping users control their impulses.

I personally feel the users should bear the overwhelming majority of
responsibility for controlling their own impulses.

But the author's own website contains design objects that encourage certain
impulsive behaviors and I was pointing that out.

------
tard
how come this article only got 2 points[1] when someone submitted it here a
day ago, but this time it's at the top of everything?

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11726766](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11726766)

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Because life isn't fair.

------
imacomputer2
Estimated rewarding time is 12 minutes? Who reads that fast!

------
cdnsteve
A brilliant article.

------
mck-
How Hacker News Hijacks your day...

------
RonileC
Inspiring!

------
guard-of-terra
When people are given a menu of choices, they rarely ask:

    
    
        “what’s not on the menu?”
        “why am I being given these options and not others?”
        “do I know the menu provider’s goals?”
        “is this menu empowering for my original need, or are the choices actually a distraction?” (e.g. an overwhelmingly array of toothpastes)
    

It's so much more about politics (elections of all levels) rather than about
technology!

~~~
Aissen
It's actually more about philosophy: free-will and the illusion of choice.

------
ommunist
This is another perspective on what Nick Carr noticed in his brilliant "The
Shallows", and it is invaluable. I am glad Google is not entirely evil.

------
hackaflocka
Nothing "the government" can't solve!!!

------
Pulce
Likes was 666 wen I went to the page... that hijacks me.

------
tacos
Novelty, not technology. The same cognitive behavior is exploited on
restaurant menus.

------
fsiefken
Snow Crash

~~~
Dowwie
L. Bob Rife is behind all of it.

