As technologies to manipulate our minds: popular tricks, tricks and tricks

We invite you to remember one of the best lyrics of the year: Tristan Harris, the former head of design ethics, of Google, tells how technology deceive our brain, causing us to do things we don't want (or that we didn't really need).

"It's easier to fool people than to convince him that he had been deceived»

 Unknown source

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I am an expert on how technology use vulnerabilities of our psyche. That's why I've spent the last three years as a specialist on design ethics at Google, focusing on the development thus to protect the minds of billions of people from all sorts of gimmicks and tricks.

When using technology, we often optimistically focus on the benefits that they provide to us. But I want to show you a situation in which the effect can be reversed.

In what situations technology exploit the weaknesses of our mind?

I learned to think this way when I was a magician. Magicians start with a search of "white spots", boundaries, weaknesses and limits of human perception to influence the behavior of people when they don't even know it. As soon as you know which human buttons to push, you can play it like a piano.

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I show the focus on the birthday of my mom

And this is exactly what product designers do with your consciousness. They play on your psychological vulnerability (consciously and subconsciously) against you, to grab your attention. I want to show you how they do it.

Trick No. 1: If you control menu, you control the choice

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Western culture is built around ideals of individual choice and freedom. Millions of us fiercely defend their right to do "free" choice, while ignoring a situation when a more limited selection skillfully chosen for us options that we did not choose initially.

This is exactly what magicians. They give one the illusion of free choice, at the same time picking up the options so that the victory was for them, regardless of what you chose. I can't tell you how profound the essence of this thought.

When people offer a set of options, they very rarely ask:

  • "that was not included in the menu?»

  • "why offer me these options, and not others?»

  • "if I know the purpose of the one who made this list?»

  • "whether the proposed options my original need, or they simply distract my attention?"(for example, too large a range of toothpastes in the store)

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For example, imagine that you went to relax with friends on Tuesday evening and would like to continue to communicate. You open Yelp (a service to find services in the USA) to see a list of recommended nearby restaurants and a list of nearby bars. The company turns into a bunch of faces bent over their phones and comparing the merits bars. They study the pictures of each of the bars, comparing cocktails. Whether these variants on the original request?

It's not the fact that the bar was not an option, and that Yelp has replaced the initial issue of the company ("where can we go to continue to communicate") with another question ("which bar nice interior and cocktails?") just by forming the options menu.

In addition, the company has created the illusion that Yelp provides a comprehensive set of options of places to go to relax. While they're bent over their phones, they don't pay attention to the Park across the street where you live music. They do not see a temporary exhibition of art on the other side of the street, which sold pancakes and coffee. None of these objects is not indicated in the menu Yelp.

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Yelp elusive transformerait company need "where can we go to keep talking", switching their attention to the pictures!

The more options offered to us technology in almost every sphere of our lives (information, activities, places to go, friends, Dating, work) — the more we are sure that our phone is always the most satisfactory and useful list of alternatives available. But is it?

"The most comprehensive and useful menu" is the menu, which offers the greatest number of options. But when we blindly rely on us for tailored options, it's easy to notice the difference:

  • The question "Who today is free for hanging out?"it boils down to the list of people that we recently wrote (which were easy to reach).

  • An exhaustive answer to the question "What's going on in the world?"it seems the news feed.

  • The question "With whom you can go on a date?"solved by turning photos to Tinder (app romance / Dating) (instead of events with friends or find adventure in the city).

  • The task of "I must reply to this email" is becoming the choice of variants of the most optimal way to print the response (instead of using other ways of communicating with a person).

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Any user interface is a set of alternatives. What if your client with whom you communicate by e-mail, will offer you more than a non-trivial answers is "what is the message you want to print in response to" (Design by Tristan Harris)

When we Wake up in the morning and turn to his phone to see a list of messages, we create a ritual of "morning awakening", implying the "view the list of all the events that I missed since yesterday".

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As far as the list of notifications that you view us in the morning, meets our intentions after waking up? Do the alternatives presented in it, something we care about at the moment?

Through the compilation of a restricted list of choices from which we choose the technology to displace our own preferences and replace them with new ones. But the closer we look to the alternatives that we have, the more we notice that, in fact, they do not meet our real needs.

Trick No. 2: Put slot machine in a billion pockets

How the application can make you stay on the hook? He just needs to turn into a slot machine.

The average person checks their phone 150 times a day. Why are we doing this? If we consciously make this choice 150 times?

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How many times a day you check your email?

One of the main reasons is the psychological component No. 1 in a slot machine: periodic various rewards.

If you want to maximize your dependence on their product, all they need to do is to link user actions (e.g. pressing a lever) with periodic rewards. You press the lever and immediately get or enticing reward (match the prize!) or nothing. The dependence reaches its maximum limit when the interest rate is the most volatile.

It really works on people? Yeah. Slot machines in the United States bring in more revenue than baseball, the movies and theme parks combined. According to Natasha Dow Shull, Professor at new York University, author of "Addiction by design", people become "unhealthy attachment" to slot machines 3-4 times faster than other types of gambling.

But here's the ugly truth, several billion people are slot machine in your pocket:

  • When we get the phone, we play the slot machine, viewing received notifications.

  • When we take the phone to check e-mail, we play a slot machine, looking through the generated emails.

  • When we turn the tape Instagram, we play a slot machine, figuring out what picture is next.

  • When we look at the face left/right in the Dating apps, like Tinder, are we playing a slot machine to see if there was for us a couple.

  • When we press red button of the notification, we're playing the slot machine, finding out what's inside.

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Apps and sites frequently use a variety of these encourage users as it on hand their business.

But in some cases, slot machines have emerged by coincidence. For example, the transformation of the e-mail slot was not a malicious goal of a Corporation. No one wins from the fact that millions of people check my email and find nothing there. Also, neither Apple nor Google was going to turn phones into slot machines. It was an accident.

But, nevertheless, companies such as Apple and Google have a responsibility to reduce this effect by making a variety of periodic promotions to reward, causing less dependence, more thoughtful design. For example, they could give people the opportunity to set the time of day or week during which they would like to check out the "games" application, and these points will be coordinated with delivery of new messages.

Trick No. 3: the Fear to miss something important

Another way in which apps and sites possess the minds of men, is the suggestion that "1% of the cases you can miss something important."

If I can convince you that I am the source and the channel of important information, messages, friendships or potential sexual opportunities — you will be hard to refuse me the option to unsubscribe or remove your account because (yeah, I won!) you may miss something important:

  • That is why we do not cancel your subscription to the newsletter, even if they have not been updated ("what if I miss an interesting notice in the future?»)

  • For the same reason we "supported friendships" with people with whom no contact for a long time ("what if I miss some important information from them?»)

  • It forces us to continue to look through the profiles in the application for Dating, even if we for a long time with no one familiar, "what if I miss that perfect partner, who I also like?»

  • For this reason, we constantly use social networks ("what if I miss this important news or not be able to keep the conversation on this topic with my friends?»)

But if we look into the nature of this fear, we discover that it is limitless: we are missing something important at any moment cease to use any service.

  • There will always be "very important moments" on Facebook that we miss when our five hours of flipping to the news (for example, the arrival of an old friend in your town).

  • Will always be not discovered "very important points" in the Tinder (e.g., romantic partner of our dreams) if you don't reach the 700-th profile.

  • We miss extremely important calls, if we do not stay connected 24 hours 7 days a week.

But life is given to us not so that we existed in constant fear to miss something important.

And it's amazing how quickly we get rid of illusions that we should just let go of this fear. When we are disconnected from the network for a time longer than the day, abandon all notifications or go to summer camp experiences, which we thought would bother us, in fact do not occur.

We don't miss what you don't see.

The thought "what if I miss something important" is occurring before shutdown unsubscribe or closing and not after. Imagine if a technology company has recognized this, and helped us to form our relationships with friends and companies, in accordance with what we define as "efficient time spent" our life instead of thinking about what we can skip.

Trick No. 4: Social approval

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Undoubtedly, one of the most important incentives affecting a person.

We all crave social approval. The need to belong to a circle of their own kind, to get their approval or get their high evaluation of our actions is one of the most important motivations of human actions. But today the mechanism of obtaining social approval is in the hands of technology companies.

When my friend mark said to me in the pictures, I think that's his conscious decision. But I don't see how a company like Facebook had prompted him to this action.

Facebook, Instagram or SnapChat can manipulate the frequency of affixing tags to the photos automatically offering a list of the persons who people it should be noted (for example, offering a prompt confirmation in 1 click "Mark Tristan in this photo?»)

So when mark said to me, he actually responds to Facebook offer, rather than making independent choices. Using this design provide options Facebook controls the frequency of receiving social approval millions of people in the network.

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Facebook uses auto-suggestion, such as described above, to get people to see more of other people, creating more and more directed outward impulses and mutual contacts.

The same happens when we change the main picture on our profile — Facebook knows that this is the moment when we are most vulnerable on the subject of obtaining social approval: "what my friends think about my new pictures?» Facebook may rank higher this notification in the news feed so that it stays in mind for longer time more friends could "like" or comment on the photo. Each time a photo got a "like" or comment, the news will again be in the upper range.

Human nature implies a natural reaction to social approval, but some segments of the population (teenagers) are more affected than others. It is therefore very important to know how powerful are the developers, exploiting the vulnerability.

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Trick No. 5: Social reciprocity (quid Pro quo)

  • You're doing me a favor I now owe you.

  • You say "Thank you" — I should reply, "please."

  • You sent me an e-mail is rude not to answer it.

  • You gave me a signed — rude not to sign up in response (especially for teenagers).

We are required to reciprocate to the gestures of other people. But, as in matters of social approval, technology companies today manipulate the frequency of these events.

Sometimes this happens unintentionally. Emails, messages and messengers are factories for the formation of social reciprocity. But in other cases, companies deliberately exploit the vulnerability of our psyche.

LinkedIn is the most obvious example of such a company. LinkedIn wants more people created a social obligation to each other because every time they reciprocate (accepting the request of contacts, answering a message, or endorsing someone's professionalism) on the action of another person, they need to get back on linkedin.com where they may be forced to spend more time.

ToAK and Facebook, LinkedIn is taking advantage of the mismatch of perception. When you receive an invitation from someone to join the network, you think that person made a conscious decision to invite you, while actually, he's probably unconsciously responded to the invitation from LinkedIn to invite someone of the recommended contacts. In other words, LinkedIn makes your unconscious impulses ("add") social obligation, to which millions of people feel compelled to reciprocate. And all this while the company gets the benefit of time that people spend on the site.

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Imagine millions of people so kill during the work day, running around, like squirrels in a cage to reciprocate the actions of the other, — all this planned by companies that benefit from it.

Welcome to the social network.

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After receiving confirmation, LinkedIn enjoys provided you effect, forcing you to reciprocate by sending offers *four* additional people.

Imagine if a technology company wanted to reducing the appearance of social obligations. Or if there were an independent organization that would represent the public interest — the Union of industry or the FDA (authority products) for technology which would track cases when a technology company to abuse their influence?

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Trick No. 6: an Endless belt and AutoPlay

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YouTube automatically plays the next video after a short period of time after the previous one.

Another way to master the human mind — to get him to consume products even when he is not hungry.

How? Easily. Take the experience, which was limited and completed, and turn it into an endless, continuous stream.

A Professor from Cornell University Brian Vansink demonstrated this phenomenon in his scientific work, showing how you can get people to continue eating the soup, if you give them a "bottomless" plate, which is constantly updated. People with a "bottomless" bowls consumed 73% more calories than people who eat off regular plates, and thus underestimate the amount of food eaten 140 calories.

Technology companies are exploiting the same principle. The news feed is specifically designed to load a new record and force you to browse further, they specifically exclude any reason for you to stay, to change his mind or leave.

That is why video and social networking such as Netflix, YouTube or Facebook automatically lose the next video after a certain time instead of having to wait for your conscious choice (in case you don't do). A huge amount of traffic on these sites swinging through AutoPlay the next record.

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Facebook automatically plays the next video a few seconds after the previous one.

Technology companies often say that "just make it easier for users watching the movie that they wanted to see", while in fact they are complying with their commercial interests. And you can't blame them, because the increase in time spent by you on their resources — is the currency for which they compete.

Instead, imagine if technology companies gave you the opportunity to consciously limit conducted on their website time, in accordance with the concept of "efficient time spent" for you personally. Not only limiting the duration of stay in the network, but also allowing you to assess the quality of what can be called "rationally available".

Trick number 7: a Sharp gentle interruption vs. flow

Companies know that messages with instant notification convincingly encourage people to answer than messages delivered asynchronously (e.g., email or any pending incoming messages).

Not surprisingly, Facebook Messenger (like WhatsApp, WeChat, SnapChat or other messaging apps), I prefer to model their messaging system on the principle of instant alerts about the delivery (showing the chat line) instead of having to help users with respectful attention to each other.

In other words, immediate distraction is a good way of obtaining commercial benefits.

Also in their interests to reinforce a sense of urgency and social reciprocity. For example, Facebook automatically notifies the sender about a time when you "saw" it the message, instead of allow you to avoid embarrassment when you read the message ("now that you know that I saw the message, I feel even more obliged to respond").

On the contrary, Apple showing more respect, allows users to enable or disable the notifications "received read messages".

The problem is, that by increasing facts of distraction in the name of commercial interests, develops the tragedy of the Commons, disturbed concentration on a global scale and every created billions of cases of unnecessary distraction. This is a huge problem we need to solve through the development of common standards of design (potentially as part of the "Rational time").

Trick # 8: Merge your objectives with those companies

Another way that applications possess your minds — is an attempt to turn the reasons for which you visited the app (to perform some specific tasks), an integral part of the commercial objectives of the application (the maximum increase in consumed information as soon as you got there).

For example, in the real world of grocery stores, the two most common reasons for a visit to the replenishment and buying milk. But grocery stores want to maximize the number of items to be purchased, so they put medications and milk in the back of the store.

In other words, they do target consumers (milk, medicine) is inseparable from the commercial objectives of the store. If stores really wanted to help people, they would put the most popular products in the forefront.

Technology companies are designing their sites on the same principle. For example, when you want to watch the event Facebook tonight (your reason) the app Facebook does not allow you to reach it without a preview feed, (they reason), and this is done on purpose. Facebook wants to turn every reason that prompted you to use their services in the cause, consistent with the commercial goals of the company, i.e. the maximum increase in the amount of time spent online.

Instead, imagine that...

  • Twitter has provided you with a separate way to send a tweet, instead of having to browse the news feed.

  • Facebook has offered you a separate way to view the Facebook event for tonight, not forcing you to view their news feed.

  • Facebook has offered you a way to use Facebook Connect as a passport to create a new account for apps and third party websites that are not forcing you to install the full Facebook app, news feed and notifications.

In a world of "Efficient time spent" will always be a direct way to get what meets your needs, apart from what is beneficial to the company. Imagine a digital "bill of rights" outlining standards of design, binding services, used by billions of people, to provide users with effective tools to achieve their goals, without forcing them to Wade through deliberately placed traps.

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Imagine if web browsers give you the ability to jump directly to the purpose of your visit, especially on sites that deliberately change the route of your actions to meet their own needs.

Trick No. 9: the Inconvenient way to make a choice

We are told that the company has sufficient "to provide the opportunity of choice."

  • "If you don't like our product, you can always use the other one."

  • "If you don't like our service, you can always unsubscribe»

  • "If you feel the dependency of our app, you can always remove it from your phone."

Naturally, companies want to make more accessible for the choices and options that are inconvenient for them is difficult. Magicians do the same. You make it easier for the viewer to take the desired thing and make the path to the unfavorable things.

For example, NYTimes.com allows you "free" to abandon your electronic subscription. But instead of let you to perform this action, simply click on "unsubscribe", they send you an email with information on how to cancel a phone number that only works at certain times.

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Instead of looking at the world from the point of view of availability of choices, we need to look at the world from the point of view of effort spent towards implementation of these options. Imagine a world in which the choices would be marked according to how difficult it is to implement them (a kind of difficulty factors), and where there is an independent organization — the concern of the industry or non-profit organization that puts these marks depending on difficulty level, and sets the standards of attainability of the final goal.

Trick # 10: Predicting error and the strategy of "feeding foot in the door»

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Facebook promises easy option of choosing "View pictures". We wouldn't have it pressed, if you'd seen the real price you have to pay?

Finally, applications can exploit the inability of man to foresee the consequences of depression.

People are not able intuitively to predict the real value of a click, on the basis of this proposal. Conductors use the tactics of "saviana feet in the doorway," beginning with small innocuous requests ("only one click to see transferred to the tweet chain"), and then increasing the speed ("why don't you stay here longer?") Almost all social sites use this trick.

Imagine if browsers and smartphones, i.e., the gateways through which we make this choice, a really sought to help people to predict the consequences of clicks (based on real data about the benefits and costs?).

That's why I'm adding the predicted time reading at the beginning of my posts. When you show people the "true price" of their choice, do you treat your users and audience with respect. The Internet is Time Well Spent ("Rational time"), the options will be issued from the point of view of perceived costs and benefits to people by default had the opportunity to make an informed choice, without performing unnecessary work.

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TripAdvisor uses a technique of "foot in the door" when asking you to put a rating in 1 click ("How many stars?"), hiding her 3-page questionnaire.

Conclusions and how to fix it

You are upset that technology has such a big impact on your life? Me too. I have listed a few methods, but in fact thousands of them. Imagine a filled bookshelf, seminars, meetings and workshops, where aspiring entrepreneurs in the technology industry teach such techniques. Imagine hundreds of developers whose daily job is to keep you on the hook.

Absolute freedom is a free mind, and we need to have technology working on our side to help us live, to think and act freely.

We need our smartphones, displays notifications and browsers were the outer frame of our minds and personal relationships, priority of which are our values, not impulses. Our time is very valuable. And we must protect it with the same energy as privacy and other digital rights.published 

 

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Source: www.iidf.ru/media/articles/lifehacks/kak-tekhnologii-manipuliruyut-nashim-razumom-populyarnye-tryuki-priyemy-i-fokusy/