Tristan Harris
Co-founder of the Center for Humane Technologies and former design ethicist at Google.
When we use this or that technology, we are quite optimistic about the opportunities that it gives us. What if I show you the flipside of all this and tell you how technology exploits the vulnerability of our minds?
I first thought about this when I was playing magician as a child. Having groped blind spots, weaknesses and limits of perception of people, the illusionist can act on them so deftly that a person does not even notice how he is being led by the nose. If you find the right "keys" from people, you can play them like a piano.
Product creators do exactly the same thing with our minds. To gain attention, they play with your psychological weaknesses - consciously or not.
Trick # 1. If you manage the menu, then you control your choice.
Western culture is built on the ideals of freedom and personal choice. Millions of people fiercely defend the right to freedom of decision-making, but at the same time they do not see that they are being manipulated. All this freedom is available only within the framework of a given menu - and we, of course, did not choose it.
This is how magicians work. They give people an illusion free choice, but in fact, only options are thrown up that guarantee victory to the illusionist. I can't even convey the full depth of this insight.
If a person is given a ready-made list of options, he rarely wonders what was not included in the list and why it contains such options, and not some others. What the person who made the list wanted to achieve, whether these options help satisfy the need or only distract from it - hardly anyone will ask about such.
Imagine that you meet up with friends on a Tuesday night and decide to sit somewhere. Open the review aggregator and start looking for what's nearby. The whole company instantly buries itself in smartphones and starts comparing bars, studying photos and evaluating a list of cocktails... So how, did this help to solve the problem of “sitting somewhere”?
The problem is not in the bars, but in the fact that the aggregator uses the menu to replace the original need. “Sit and chat” becomes “find a bar with the coolest cocktail photos”. Moreover, your company falls into the illusion that the proposed list contains all the options available. While the friends are looking at the screens of their smartphones, they do not notice that the musicians have staged a live concert in a nearby park, and there is a cafe across the street serving pancakes and coffee. Well, of course, because the aggregator did not offer them this.
The more choice technology gives us in any area of life, be it information, events, places where it stands going out, friends, dating or work, the more we believe that a smartphone provides an exhaustive list options. But is it?
Choosing that helps us solve a problem is not the same as choosing from a large number of options. But when we blindly believe everything that is shoved to us, this difference is easy to miss. The question "Who can you hang out with tonight?" turns into a selection from a list of people you recently chatted with. “What's going on in the world” turns into a news feed. The question "Who to go to date? " is solved by scrolling through photos on Tinder, although you could go with friends to some local event or just go in search of adventure in the city. Finally, “I need to answer this letter” comes down to choosing options for what to write, and there are many other ways to contact a person.
Even our morning starts with checking notifications. We wake up and immediately pick up a smartphone - you never know, we suddenly missed something important. But does the notification list show what is really important to us?
By creating a limited list of choices from which to choose, technology replaces our true preferences with what they feel comfortable with. And if you look closely at what we are offered, you can understand that all this does not meet our real needs.
Trick # 2. Personal slot machine in everyone's pocket
How can an application hook a user? You have to become a kind of slot machine. On average, a person checks their smartphone 150 times a day. But is it really a conscious choice all 150 times?
The same mechanism works here as in slot machines: reinforcement with periodic rewards. If you need to hook the user on your product, link his actions with the opportunity to receive that very reward. You pull the lever and you get the prize immediately - or you get nothing. The more the reward changes, the more addictive it becomes.
And does it really work? And how. Slot machines in the USA bringSlot Machines: The Big Gamble more money than baseball, movies and amusement parks combined. According toNo armed bandit Professor of New York University Natasha Dow Shull, addiction to slot machines occurs 3-4 times faster than other types of gambling.
And now the unpleasant truth: billions of people carry a slot machine in their pocket.
We play when we pick up a smartphone and check for fresh notifications. We play when we open the mail - well, are there any new letters? We play when we watch the Instagram feed: I wonder what kind of photo will fall next? Even when you flip through photos on Tinder, this is also a game: suddenly you will find someone with whom you can pair.
Apps and sites use rewards simply because they work for the good of the business. But sometimes this effect occurs by accident. For example, Email not the product of some evil corporation. No one profits from the fact that millions of people regularly check their mail and find nothing new there. The designers from Apple and Google didn't want to turn your smartphone into a gaming machine. It just happened.
Big companies now need to take responsibility and offset this effect by making rewards less addictive and more predictable. For example, they could give people the opportunity to choose the time when they want to check what's new in applications, and send notifications only during that period.
Trick # 3. Fear of missing out on something important
To manipulate people's minds, apps and websites suggest that there is a 1% chance that you will miss something. If I can convince you that I am a source of meaningful information and a supplier friendly contacts or potential sexual partners, you won't get rid of me so easily. You will not delete your account and unsubscribe, because (ha ha, I won!) You will be scared to miss something.
Therefore, we are subscribed to stupid mailings - you never know, suddenly there will be something interesting in the next letter. We keep in our “friends” people with whom we have not communicated for a hundred years - suddenly we will miss something important from them. We are sitting in dating applications, even if we do not plan to meet with anyone, because we are afraid to miss the one or the very one who is interested in us. We hang out on social media so as not to miss the news that will be discussed by everyone around.
But if you take a closer look at this fear, it turns out that in any case we will miss something.
You may not see a message from an old friend, if you do not sit on Facebook for several hours in a row, miss your ideal partner in Tinder, if you don't flip through the photos there 700 times a day, don't answer an urgent call on time - you can't be in touch 24/7.
Seriously, we don't live to constantly twitch and be afraid to miss something. It is amazing how quickly this fear goes away when one gets rid of illusions. Try for at least a day go offline and turn off all notifications. Most likely, nothing terrible will happen.
We do not miss what we do not see. The thought that you might be overlooking something appears until the moment you exit the application or unsubscribe from the mailing list. Before, not after. It would be great if tech companies take this into account and help build relationships with people around us in terms of time well spent, rather than bullying us with an illusory opportunity to miss something important.
Trick # 4. Social approval
Each of us is easy to catch with this bait. The desire to belong to a certain group and receive recognition from it is one of the strongest motivators for any person. But now tech companies are driving social approval.
When a friend marks me in a photo, I think it's his deliberate choice. In fact, he was led to such an action by a company like Facebook. Social media manipulates the way people point to other users' photos, slipping them candidates that can be tagged in one click. It turns out that my friend did not make a choice, but simply agreed to what Facebook suggested. Through solutions like this, the company manipulates millions of people to play on their desire for social approval.
The same happens when we change our profile photo. The social network knows: at this moment we are most vulnerable to the approval of others - it’s interesting, after all, what friends will say about the new photo. Facebook can raise this event higher in the news feed so that as many people as possible like or leave a comment. And every time someone does this, we return to the social network again.
Some groups are particularly sensitive to public approval - take teenagers at least. Therefore, it is extremely important to understand the impact designers have on us when they use this mechanism.
Trick # 5. Social reciprocity, or quid pro quo
They helped me - I have to help in return. They say "thank you" - I answer "you are always welcome." I got an email - it would be rude not to answer. You subscribed to me - if I don't do the same in return, it won't turn out very politely.
The need to reciprocate the actions of others is our other weak point. Of course technology companies will not miss the chance to exploit this vulnerability. Sometimes this happens by accident: emails and instant messengers, by definition, involve reciprocity. But in other situations, companies deliberately exploit our weaknesses in order to benefit.
LinkedIn is probably the most obvious manipulator. The service wants to create as many social obligations between people as possible so that they return to the site whenever they receive a message or a contact request.
LinkedIn uses the same scheme as Facebook: when you get a request, you think it's a conscious choice of the person. In fact, he just automatically answered the list of contacts offered by the service.
In other words, LinkedIn turns unconscious impulses into social obligations, makes millions of people feel like they're in debt, and capitalizes on it.
Just imagine how it looks from the outside. People run around all day like a chicken with a severed head and are constantly distracted from business in order to reciprocate each other, and the company that has developed such a model benefits. What if tech companies took responsibility for reducing social commitments, or a separate organization monitored for possible abuse?
Trick # 6. Bottomless Saucer, Endless Ribbon & Autoplay
Another way to get hold of people's minds is to make them consume, even if they are already fed up. How? Yes, easily. We take a process that is limited and finite and turn it into an endless stream.
Cornell University professor Brian Wansink has shown how it works. Participants in his experiment ate soup from bottomless bowls that were automatically refilled over and over again. It turned out that in such conditions people consumed 73% more caloriesthan usual, while underestimating the real amount of food eaten.
Tech companies use the same principle. The news feed automatically downloads all new entries so that you continue to scroll through it. Netflix, YouTube, and Facebook include the following video instead of giving you an informed choice. Autoplay is responsible for a significant proportion of the traffic on these sites.
Companies often say that in this way they simplify the user's life, although in fact they only defend their business interests. It is difficult to blame them for this, because the time spent on the resource is the currency for which they are fighting. Just imagine that companies could make efforts not only to increase the amount of this time, but also to improve its quality.
Trick # 7. A sharp distraction instead of a polite reminder
Companies know that the most effective messages are the ones that dramatically distract the person. They are more likely to be answered than a delicate email that lies quietly in your inbox.
Naturally, messengers prefer to bother the user, grab his attention and immediately show the window chatto read the message immediately. Distraction is beneficial for business, as well as the feeling that the message must be answered urgently - here also social reciprocity is connected. For example, Facebook shows the sender that you read his message: like it or not, you have to answer. Apple treats users with great respect and allows you to turn off read receipts.
By constantly distracting people, business creates a serious problem: it is difficult to concentrate when you are twitched a billion times a day for any reason. This problem can be solved using uniform standards for creating services and applications.
Trick # 8. Your tasks are closely related to business tasks
To make it easier for you manipulate, applications learn your goals (let's say, completing a task) and combine them with business goals so that you spend as much time in this application as possible and actively consume content.
For example, people usually go to a supermarket to buy milk. But the store needs to increase sales, so dairy products end up on the shelves at the very end of the hall. So the goals of the buyer (to buy milk) become inseparable from the goals of the store (to sell as much as possible).
If the supermarket really cared about customers, it would not force them to dash around the hall, but put the most popular goods on the shelves right at the entrance.
Tech companies use the same approach when creating their products. You have a task to open the event page on Facebook. But the application will not let you do this until you open the news feed. His task is to make you spend as much time on the social network as possible.
In an ideal world, we are free to do what we want, not the business: you can post a message on Twitter or open an event page on Facebook without going to the feed. Imagine a digital Bill of Rights that outlines product design standards. Thanks to these standards, billions of users will be able to immediately get what they need, and not wander through the maze.
Trick # 9. Inconvenient choice
It is believed that the business should give the client an obvious choice. If you don't like one product - use another, if you don't like the newsletter - unsubscribe, and if you feel that you are addicted to the application, just delete it.
Not really. The business wants you to make choices that benefit them. Therefore, the actions that a business needs are easy to carry out, and those that cause only losses are much more difficult. For example, you can't just go and unsubscribe from The New York Times. They promise that there is nothing complicated about this, but instead of an instant unsubscribe, you will receive an email with instructions and a number that you need to call at a certain time to finally cancel your subscription.
Instead of talking about the possibility of choice, it is better to consider the effort that must be made to make that choice. Imagine a world where available solutions are tagged with a certain level of sophistication, all regulated by an independent organization.
Trick # 10. False Predictions and Foot in the Door Strategy
Apps and services exploit human inability to predict the consequences of a click. People simply cannot intuitively estimate the real cost of the action that they are asked to perform.
The “Foot in the door” technique is often used in sales. It all starts with a harmless sentence: "Just one click and you will see which tweet has been retweeted." Further - more: an innocent request is followed by a sentence in the spirit of "Why don't you stay here for a while?"
Imagine if browsers and smartphones really cared about people and helped them make informed choices by predicting the impact of a click. On the Internet, all options for action must be presented with real benefits and costs in mind - so that people can make informed choices without additional effort.
What to do with it all
Sad to know how technology is driving you? So I'm sad. I have listed just a few techniques, in fact there are thousands of them. Imagine shelves full of books, seminars, workshops and trainings that teach entrepreneurs all this. Hundreds of engineers work all day and come up with new ways to keep you on the hook.
To find freedom, you need to free your mind. Therefore, we need technologies that will play for us and help us live, feel, think and act freely. Smartphones with notifications and browsers should become a kind of exoskeletons for our minds and relationships with others - helpers who prioritize our values, not impulses.
Our time is a value. And we must protect it with the same zeal as privacy and other digital rights.
Read also🧐
- 6 examples of how technology is changing our body
- 7 habits you urgently need to give up
- "Inhuman accounts": how virtual influencers are conquering the Internet