Persuasive Technology

What Hacker News says

1. sphJun 2026
   It helps to view it under a neurological perspective.

   Not being bored = likely scrolling social media = dopamine release = the exact mechanism that reinforces patterns and behaviours in our brain, which under some conditions can reach stages of compulsion. I loath to blame the individual when these systems are designed to exploit flaws in human behaviour.

   I recently read a self-help book by B.J. Fogg, a professor at Stanford Behavior Design Lab (formerly known as the Persuasive Technology Lab) that was boasting how he mentored the Instagram founders and helped them optimize their app for maximum engagement. The book itself was pretty good, but I couldn't help but think I'm reading the words of a complete sociopath that has indirectly caused untold psychological damage, and was pretty proud about it.

   Is it Jane Doe's fault that she's now hopelessly addicted to Instagram?

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2. 1letterunixnameFeb 2024
   Relevant reads:

   Manufacturing Consent (1989)

   https://archive.org/details/pdfy-NekqfnoWIEuYgdZl

   Persuasive Technology (1996,2002)

   https://archive.org/details/persuasivetechno0000fogg

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3. charleshaanelNov 2012
   BJ Fogg (at the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab - http://captology.stanford.edu/) and Nir Eyal have great research on the topic of forming habits:

   The Fogg Model for Behavior Design and Eyals MEA "Minimum Enjoyable Activity" for habit design are excellent frameworks.

   http://www.tinyhabits.com http://www.nirandfar.com/2012/01/your-new-years-resolution-i.... http://www.nirandfar.com/2012/02/habits-are-new-viral-why-st.... (great read for founders http://www.psychologytoday.com/experts/nir-eyal

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbHMwNbXnXo (nice video presentation)

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4. dogman144Apr 2022
   This is the most challenging transition with tech in terms of the outcomes and the difficulty defining just what this trend is.

   Cybernetics is* ~insertion of a governance layer into our social contract that we didn't agree to relinquish our agency to... It just sort of happened, and we deal with the outcomes. The more disconcerting aspect to me is the latter. Suddenly, QR codes everywhere, good luck getting around without a smart phone, if that driverless car sideswipes you and doesn't stop, call someone I guess?

   If this area/trend interests you, there is a lot of reading available from the weird (CCRU, early Nick Land) to the fairly mechanical/academic (MIT, Norbert Wiener), to the openly behavioral governance-themed (Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, B.J. Fogg), to adversarial-to-tech (The Cybernetic Hypothesis).

   * so-so definition of the space, but its the best I can sum it up.

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5. dredmorbiusJan 2018
   I find several references as I read the article:

   "In Persuasive Technology, one of the most quietly influential books to come out of Silicon Valley in the past two decades, the Stanford psychologist B.J. Fogg predicted that computers could and would take massive advantage of our susceptibility to prodding. "People get tired of saying no; everyone has a moment of weakness when it's easier to comply than to resist," he wrote. Published in 2002, Prof. Fogg's book now seems eerily prescient."

   "A recent study of Chinese middle schoolers found something similar. Among more than 7,000 students, mobile phone ownership was found to be "significantly associated" with levels of inattention seen in people with attention-deficit disorder."

   "Workers at a British company who multitasked on electronic media – a decent proxy for frequent smartphone use – were found in a 2014 study to lose about the same quantity of IQ as people who had smoked cannabis or lost a night's sleep."

   This item cites expertise rather than a specific study, but:

   "These companies have persuaded us to give over so much of our lives by exploiting a handful of human frailties. One of them is called novelty bias. It means our brains are suckers for the new. As the McGill neuroscientist Daniel Levitin explains, we're wired this way to survive."

   "The devices exert such a magnetic pull on our minds that just the effort of resisting the temptation to look at them seems to take a toll on our mental performance. That's what Adrian Ward and his colleagues at the University of Texas business school found in an experiment last year. They had three groups of people take a test that required their full concentration. One group had their phones face down on the table, one had them in their bags or pockets and the last group left them in another room. None of the test-takers were allowed to check their devices during the test. But even so, the closer at hand the phones were, the worse the groups performed."

   "Researchers at Cambridge University showed recently that eye contact synchronizes the brainwaves of infant and parent, which helps with communication and learning. Meeting each other's gaze, Ms. Sandink says, amounts to "a silent language between the baby and the mom." That doesn't mean breastfeeding mothers need to lock eyes with their children 24 hours a day. But while Ms. Sandink emphasizes that she isn't trying to shame women, she worries that texting moms may be missing out on vital bonding time with their babies."

   "Catherine Steiner-Adair, a clinical psychologist and research associate in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, interviewed 1,000 kids between the ages of 4 and 18 for her 2013 book The Big Disconnect. Many of them said they no longer run to the door to greet their parents because the adults are so often on their phones when they get home."

   "The Center for the Digital Future, an American think tank, found that between 2006 and 2011, the average number of hours American families spent together per month dropped by nearly a third, from 26 to about 18."

   So, no, actually, I find your characterisation entirely inaccurate.

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