“Man has an almost infinite appetite for distractions”
Aldous Huxley, brave new world
You have probably never heard of BJ Fogg. But he has impacted your life more than you could imagine. He is the godfather of “behavioral design”, the study of designing human behavior. Fogg taught his students how to capture human behavior and how to create a lasting connection between a human’s mind and a product. This approach works especially well for (social media) apps.
Among Fogg’s students were many later Facebook and Google employees. These students put Fogg’s insights into practice by creating strong “hooks” in the minds of people, related to their apps. They do this by creating a triggers that are linked to rewards. For example, the vibration of a phone (trigger) to a social message (reward). According to Fogg, “when motivation is high enough, or a task easy enough, people become responsive to triggers such as the vibration of a phone or Facebook’s red dot”. Like a Pavlov-reaction. This is how the makers of apps can create a strong connection to a person’s mind and their apps.
This has resulted in the massive use of smartphones by millions of people around the world. Studies indicate that frequent users open their smartphones as often as 200 times a day! That means every five waking minutes (Falaki et. al., 2010). Checking your smartphone so often seems unhealthy and consequently, some argue that it should be indicated as an “addiction”. The creators of social media have been criticized for intentionally making people mentally dependent on their products. However, you might argue people are responsible for their own behavior.
So, I have two questions for you:
How often do you check your smartphone each day?
How often would you want to check your smartphone each day?
Sources
Bentley, F., K. Church, B. Harrison, K. Lyons and M. Rafalow, M. “Three Hours a Day:
Understanding Current Teen Practices of Smartphone Application Use.” (2015) Accessed
November 11, 2016, arXiv:1510.05192.
Falaki, H., R. Mahajan, S. Kandula, D. Lymberopoulos, R. Govindan and D. Estrin,
“Diversity in smartphone usage.” Proceedings of the 8th international conference On mobile
systems, applications, and services. ACM (2010) 179-194. Accessed November 2, 2016. doi:
10.1145/1814433.1814453
Huxley, A. (1936) Brave new world
https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-scientists-who-make-apps-addictive
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia
Hi Paul,
Thank you for sharing this insightful blog. Guilty as charged, I also just looked at the message that popped up on my iPhone after it vibrated..
Smartphone producers in a sense have some sort of control over our lives, without smartphone users being very aware of this. Researched showed that around 72% of people said they are rarely more than five feet away from their handset at any time, which is also called nomophobia. When not being around your phone people get a feel of missing out of what happens in the outside world. After reading your blog I think this phenomena could also explain why so many people keep using their smartphones in traffic, whilst most of them are aware of the consequences.
To answer your question; as I personally became more aware of my smartphone usage I decided to install an app that tracks my activities. Currently I spend a little less than 3 hours a day on my phone and pick up my phone around 70 times a day. I believe the amount of time spend on my phone is extremely high. Contrary, I use my phone for all kinds of uses, like listening to music whilst biking or studying, checking my email, a personal running coach and online shopping. This provides one of the reasons why it is so hard to quit using your smartphone. There are so many new uses implemented on smartphones that it becomes almost impossible to not use these easy to reach functionalities.
I am curious to find out if after writing this article and conducting some research, you became more aware of your phone usage and if so, how you try to limit it.
Nice read:
http://www.techaddiction.ca/smartphone-addiction-problem.html
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your post. I really liked the opening quote.
Indeed, the smartphone addiction is a growing problem. According to Jumio research, even half of people use their phones while driving; one in ten don’t even leave them while taking a shower. It seems that we got so used to our mobile devices, we started seeing them as extensions of ourselves. However, it’s also worth noticing that people’s awareness of the issue is increasing. In 2017, in the UK, 38% of Deloitte research respondents admitted that they’re using their phone too often.
This growing awareness has a created a new market opportunity – for people wanting to fight their mobile phone addiction. There are applications available – such as Mute, Space, Moment – tracking how often a user unlocks his phone and how much time he spends using it. It has also become more common for mobile phone users to change their phone’s screen into a grayscale. Researchers claim this weakens the rewarding effect people get while checking their mobile device. There are also treatment groups and centers, such as Internet and Tech Anonymous, for smartphone addicts, and “digital detox” summer camps.
I hope that as time goes by, people will acknowledge how serious the issue is and start implementing general anti-smartphone solutions. Maybe we should start with a “no smartphones at the university” rule? 😉
Thanks for sharing such an interesting article! It truly incorporates the relevance of behavioural science in business and IT. I quite agree to the fact that the creators of social media try to make people addicted to their products. But at the same time this is true for any business. In my opinion the problem lies with the ability of people to control their instincts and realising the importance of prioritising their day-to-day activities. This ultimately leads one to ponder on the impact or effects of spending significant amount of time on such applications. I, for instance, used to spend a lot of time on social media. Luckily, I was quick to realise how this affected my other activities and started spending significantly lesser time on it. It ultimately depends on how one keeps himself occupied and what ones interests lies in.