Hello. This is Devan Rome. Welcome to Part 11 of my 12-part series reviewing the concepts I’ve learned in CXL’s Digital Psychology and Persuasion Program. Here is a link to the course. In this series, I review the principles discussed and taught in the course. I also write about some of my opinions of the course. With that said and out of the way, I will now get on to this week (week 11’s) review of the course. I am now about half way through this 12-part series, and I am certainly learning a lot. I’m typing this from an airport and sending it a bit later because of the business travel I’ve been doing.
I am now on Nir Eyal’s Hooked lecture. Apparently his nickname is one of the founder’s of habit forming products. Instagram would be wroth 35 billion dollars if bought today. Billion. It’s habit forming ability is related to this. We’ll be talking about habits. Habits are an impulse to do a behavior with little or no conscious thought. We are now at a precipice where can use habits for good. This is what Nir Eyal wants to work with. The hook is connecting a user’s problem with your solution with enough design to form a habit. There are 4 steps of a hook. A trigger, action, reward, and investment. There are external and internal triggers. Most people don’t pay attention to internal triggers. Triggers that come from their mind. These triggers come from a memory or association inside the user’s brain. Many common triggers are emotions. These are often negative emotions. For example, being bored, depressed, tired. One study found that people with depression check email more often. People often use products to help with their mood. People go on Facebook if they feel lonely. People go on YouTube if they feel bored. People may go on Tinder if they feel lonely. People should think about the psychological requirement that their product resolves. What companies should do is try to create an association with the emotional pain or problem that their product solves. Instagram can be said to help you solve and share the moment that you might not also have. One old, physical product is Kodak. Kodak wanted to help you associate special moments with Kodak. That is, the Kodak moment. The action phase is the simplest behavior in anticipation of reward. You should think about this. BJ Fogg’s model applies to this b = M + A + T. Motivation is the energy for action. There are six factors that can increase motivation. Seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, seeking hope, avoiding fear, seeking acceptance, and avoiding rejection. This reminds me of the Lifeforce 8 concept from the author of copywriting book. I can’t remember the name of the copywriting book for some reason, but I remember the author called himself “Dr. Direct”. Nir Eyal says that most websites work on those 6. The second part is ability, the capacity to do a particular behavior. There are six factors that can increase or decrease ability. The six factors are time, money, physical effort, brain cycles, social deviance, and non-routine. The non-routine one makes pretty clear sense. People don’t like going out of their routines. This is why habits are so important. Nir Eyal shows a graphic that tells you whether your trigger may or may not succeed. The next step is the reward phase, where the user’s itch is scratch. The area of the brain related to this is the nucleus accumbens. What the researchers studying this part of the business found was that they could easily get rat’s dangerously addicted to dopamine. Apparently, they were able to easily get humans easily addicted to dopamine. People often want to stimulate the stretch of desire. People seem to be more concerned not with getting pain, but alleviating pain. Basically, anticipation of rewards is often more powerful than the rewards itself. This seems to be related to variable rewards. When rewards are given on variable schedules of rewards. Variability spikes activity in the nucleus accumbus. This explains addictions to things like the internet, food, and etc. Nir Eyal says there are three main types of variable rewards. They are rewards of the tribe, rewards of the hunt, and rewards of the self. Rewards of the tribe are about social rewards. This is related to social media. Rewards of the hunt are resources. This seems to explain addictions to things like gambling and slot machines. This explains why feeds are so addictive. They are like slot machines! The first thing you see might not be rewarding, but the next one might be. This is why slot machines are so addictive. You should remember that variable rewards are not free passes. There must be a connection between the internal trigger and the variable reward. This is where gamification can go wrong. If you’re not scratching the user’s itch, it can be like putting chocolate on broccoli. That’s just not how it ought to work! Now for the investment phase. Investment phase is like loading the next trigger. Investments can be things like rewards programs. Rewards programs act as store values. Investment store values. This is when products get better with use. Basically everything in the world gets worse with more use. However, the more you work with digital products, the better it can become. For example, working with iCloud, AirBnB, or eBay get better over time. The best product does not always win. It’s the product that can create a monopoly of the mind that often the winds. There is a hook canvas. The trigger, rewards, investment, an action. You should ask whether you have all 4 of these. Now for the morality of all this. Designing habit forming products is a form of manipulation. You should be careful .This can be used for bad or good. This knowledge is a form of power, and like what Uncle Ben said, with great power comes great responsibility. We can design healthy habits. Therefore, we should be like Spiderman and user this great power to help improve the world. We have this power (in the form of knowledge); accordingly, it would likely be ethical for us to take responsibility with this power and user to do good.
