The design of smartphones

Why is it difficult to stop using our phones?

article from medium.com

Part of the reason that we can have difficulty putting down our phones is that they have been intentionally designed to stimulate the reward center of our brains.

They use many of the same features as slot machines. Slot machines can be addicting because they have several features that are built to activate your neural reward center. They have bright, flashing lights and sounds that provide a dopamine hit and encourage us to keep playing. They also use a variable ratio schedule of reward — the wins are random. This means that, because you don’t know if you’ll be rewarded on the next pull, you want to keep doing it over and over again.

Our phone apps share some of these features of slot machines.

Likes.

Likes are the main source of reinforcement that apps provide. We love it when we get lots of likes.

Studies have shown that social stimuli — like smiling faces, positive recognition, messages from loved ones — cause our brains to release dopamine. The likes we get from social media, as well as the comments and messages, create a chemical reward that encourages us to engage more.

Every time we go on the app, it’s like pulling the lever on a slot machine: we could “win” likes from our friends.

This is also what makes posting rewarding — we know that posting a picture, a tweet, or an article will result in engagement from others that we find rewarding.

Lights and colours.

Like the slot machines, apps provide lights and colours that make them more rewarding. Just think: would Candy Crush be nearly as interesting without all the colours?

Take another look at your social media apps these days. You’ll notice that likes are not simply a thumbs up or a red heart anymore.

Apps are increasingly using “micro-interactions” to provide even more of a dopamine hit. A micro-interaction “is a single use, subtle visual queue that draws your attention to a change in status. A power light on a coffee pot, or a color change on button hover are two examples.” Basically, they are the little animations that occur when you complete an action on an app or website.

On Twitter, if you like something, there’s a little circle of confetti that appears. Facebook’s reaction faces move when you hover over them and when you choose them.

Each of these is a micro-interaction. These apps are at the forefront of design, but you will start seeing micro-interactions in the majority of apps going forward.

Why include micro-interactions? For the same reason that the slot machines have flashing lights: they reward us with neurochemicals. They make us more likely to keep engaging with the app.

Uncertainty.

Uncertainty is rewarding. Researchers have found that anticipation of a reward can provide a hit of dopamine by itself.

In gambling, the anticipation that we get when we’re uncertain whether we’ll win can sometimes be as chemically rewarding as the win itself. That’s why slot machines don’t just instantly tell you whether you’ve won or lost. They let the wheels spin for a bit first.

Apps do this too. The little envelope with an “M” animation that happens before Gmail opens is one example. The blue circle icon on Twitter and the “M” that appears before Medium opens are two more. These are not simply to show you that the application is loading — they would occur even if your Internet was lightning fast. They are a design feature aimed at creating anticipation.

Anticipation is also why Facebook, Twitter, and others allow you to scroll indefinitely, and why we do sometimes end up scrolling indefinitely. It’s the same reason we continue to pull the lever at the slots: you never know when something good will come up. The uncertainty and anticipation of a reward encourage you to repeat the behaviour.

Action plan

Passwords

share them with your spouse or accountability partner

do not let your kids have any password to anything

Avoid isolated time on device

Get a program (bark, covenant eyes, etc)

Stay in the word