How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Former Insider

• This keeps us subscribed to newsletters even after they haven’t delivered recent benefits 
• This keeps us “friended” to people with whom we haven’t spoke in ages 
• This keeps us swiping faces on dating apps, even when we haven’t even met up with anyone in a while 
• This keeps us using social media 

We’re all vulnerable to social approval. The need to belong, to be approved or appreciated by our peers is among the highest human motivations. But now our social approval is in the hands of tech companies.

Everyone innately responds to social approval, but some demographics (teenagers) are more vulnerable to it than others. That’s why it’s so important to recognize how powerful designers are when they exploit this vulnerability.

• You do me a favor — I owe you one next time. 
• You say, “thank you”— I have to say “you’re welcome.” 
• You send me an email— it’s rude not to get back to you. 
• You follow me — it’s rude not to follow you back. 

Another way to hijack people is to keep them consuming things, even when they aren’t hungry anymore.

How? Easy. Take an experience that was bounded and finite, and turn it into a bottomless flow that keeps going.

Companies know that messages that interrupt people immediately are more persuasive at getting people to respond than messages delivered asynchronously (like email or any deferred inbox).

In other words, interruption is good for business.

Another way apps hijack you is by taking your reasons for visiting the app (to perform a task) and make them inseparable from the app’s business reasons (maximizing how much we consume once we’re there).

We’re told that it’s enough for businesses to “make choices available.” 

• “If you don’t like it you can always use a different product.” 
• “If you don’t like it, you can always unsubscribe.” 
• “If you’re addicted to our app, you can always uninstall it from your phone.” 

Apps can exploit people’s inability to forecast the consequences of a click.

People don’t intuitively forecast the true cost of a click when it’s presented to them.