Notes from reading: Hooked by Nir Eyal

I got to know about Hooked from One of my friend Chetan, as i was trying to understand why i am addicted to social media sites.

Reading the book gave me the insight how our attention is getting hacked by these apps and how these product developers are playing with our mind.

I could relate myself being Pavlov’s dog  wanting notification to satisfy my urge. To some of those who are not aware, mobile apps addiction provides us more satisfaction that Sex or consuming heroine or other drugs.

You might be surprised to know but the social media applications like Twitter, Facebook, Tinder, Instagram is designed more keeping psychology in mind than looks and feel of the app. 

These product developers have added all the psychology research inside the product as ingredients, some can be read here :

  1. Pavlov’ classical conditioning
  2. B F Skinner operant conditioning
  3. BJ Fogg variable rewards

I need to learn more to understand and relate to this, social media addiction is no less than slot machine and poker player addiction, read this interesting article from Verge  to know more.

Coming back to Nir Eyal book. According to him any Habit forming product has 4 components.

  • Trigger
    1. External
    2. Internal
  • Action

  • Reward
    • Tribe
    • Hunt
    • Self
  • Investment
    • Want the users to keep coming, add information and share details.

 

I added a twitter stream on the same

I would strongly recommend everyone to read this book.

Also read Jade Shyu medium post for more on the book content

Also read this post from The Verge on how social media apps are adding the slot machine equivalent addiction

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