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I read somewhere recently that smart phones have essentially become random gratification engines in the same way as slot machines. Sometimes on a slot machine y
by simonbarker87 10y ago
I read somewhere recently that smart phones have essentially become random gratification engines in the same way as slot machines. Sometimes on a slot machine you win the jackpot, because of this every pull gives you an endorphin kick, each time we pick up our phones or get a notification it might be an important/interesting thing, therefore we get a little endorphin kick that keeps us checking.
Because of this I turn off all notifications apart from phone calls and text messages. I don't have app badge counters or notifications for email either, if it is that important the person would ring me.
- hammock 10y agoLook up "Skinner box." Basically codified the psychology behind a slot machine. A mouse hits a single lever that either releases or doesn't release food. When the lever is set to Always release food, the mouse soon gets bored and only eats when he's hungry. When the lever is set to Randomly release food, the mouse gets addicted, compulsively hitting the lever all day without concern for how fat he is getting.
- achileas 10y agoTo expand on this a bit, BF Skinner founded the behaviorist area of psychology (which is important in later fields like neuroscience for training animals on various experiments), he specifically investigated operant behavior (behavior where the organism does something to its environment) and various schedules of reinforcement. The schedule you're thinking of is one of the strongest schedules for inducing behavior, and that's the variable ratio schedule, where reinforcement occurs after a variable number of responses from the organism. Skinner was actually one of the first to try and bring more rigor to psychology.
- marmot777 10y agoBeing aware we're in a skinner box enables us at least the option of transcending it. It's on my "to do" list.
- qb45 10y agoSources for that? "Skinner box" is a generic term for a much broader class of experiments.
- hammock 10y agoLook up "schedules of reinforcement," or see the first chart here: https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/learning-7/operant-conditioning-47/schedules-of-reinforcement-200-12735/ https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psy...
- mikeash 10y agoI've been saying this for years. You open Twitter and you may or may not get something cool. Same thing for Facebook or mail or whatever. It's inherently addictive.
- ErikAugust 10y agohttps://medium.com/@tristanharris/how-technology-hijacks-peoples-minds-from-a-magician-and-google-s-design-ethicist-56d62ef5edf3#.uk3u488ip https://medium.com/@tristanharris/how-technology-hijacks-peo... Related - you may have read it here.
- simonbarker87 10y agoYep, that's the one, thanks
- pixelmonkey 10y agoRegarding "smartphones as slot machines", the piece you are remembering is this one by Tristan Harris, probably: https://medium.com/swlh/how-technology-hijacks-peoples-minds-from-a-magician-and-google-s-design-ethicist-56d62ef5edf3 https://medium.com/swlh/how-technology-hijacks-peoples-minds... "How Technology Hijacks Minds"
- simonbarker87 10y agoYep, that's the one, thanks
- Torgo 10y agoThis is the daily reminder that technology is not politically or socially "neutral".
- cushychicken 10y agoWhat was the origin of that quote? I mentioned it offhand in conversation the other day but couldn't remember where I'd heard it.
- Torgo 10y agoI improvised it from Michel Foucault.
- tome 10y agoAre you perhaps thinking of "Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Kranzberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Kranzberg
- dredmorbius 10y agoI'm familar with it from Jerry Mander, Neil Postman, and Joyce and Michael Heusemann, who address it specifically and at length in their book Techno-Fix. Also in Marshall McLuhan (of whom Postman was a student). I think you'll find a philosophical basis in Jaques Ellul among others (Foucalt is also mentioned). From Postman: [E]very technology has an inherent bias. It has within its physical form a predisposition toward being used in certain ways and not others. Only those who know nothing of the history of technology believe that a technology is entirely neutral. French philosopher Jacques Ellul, who... ...cautions that technology brings with it a great number of unforeseen effects [4]. This is because “technology leads a double life, one which conforms to the intentions of designers and interests of power and another which contradicts them—proceeding behind the backs of their architects to yield unintended consequences and unintended possibilities” [5]. It is difficult then for us to control what we cannot always see. http://www.helwyssocietyforum.com/?p=1360 http://www.helwyssocietyforum.com/?p=1360 There's a related concept of Technological Determinism, originating with Thorstein Veblen: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism More reading: http://www.worldcat.org/title/techno-fix-why-technology-wont-save-us-or-the-environment/oclc/709681580&referer=brief_results http://www.worldcat.org/title/techno-fix-why-technology-wont... http://www.worldcat.org/title/four-arguments-for-the-elimination-of-television/oclc/3240263&referer=brief_results http://www.worldcat.org/title/four-arguments-for-the-elimina... http://www.worldcat.org/title/technopoly-the-surrender-of-culture-to-technology/oclc/24694343&referer=brief_results http://www.worldcat.org/title/technopoly-the-surrender-of-cu... http://www.worldcat.org/title/this-is-marshall-mcluhan-the-medium-is-the-message/oclc/2998154&referer=brief_results http://www.worldcat.org/title/this-is-marshall-mcluhan-the-m...
- pmoriarty 10y agoFor some reason, I misread what you said as: "smart people have essentially become random gratification engines in the same way as slot machines." Somehow, that seems strangely appropriate. If you're making interesting posts on social networks like Facebook (or HN, for that matter), you're providing that instant gratification you're talking about. Similar things could be said about those building social networks and the technology that enables them, that are then used for instant gratification.
- simonbarker87 10y agoAmusing misread and yes I suppose it still works.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoInteresting misreading. I guess in a way, HN is a random gratification engine for me like that - I visit it nowadays mostly for the often insightful comment threads.
- marmot777 10y agoThat's true in the same sense that soap has become a tool of OCD people. I don't even install games and never have so I don't know what I'm missing. I also turn off notifications, too. That's a must for all but a critical communication channel.
- sliverstorm 10y agoI have been going around and around on notifications. If sound is enabled, my phone interrupts me for trivial things & spam. If only notification is enabled, I constantly pick up my phone to see if I have email. If nothing is enabled, I unlock my phone & open my email app to see if I have email- less frequent, but more likely to get sucked in. None of these things are good.
- marmot777 10y agoI feel for you but please, please don't let email be the channel that has a hold on you. Pick another one to be a slave to. Is it work or personal? If it's work is it urgent? I ask these questions because you could set some rules on email. I check my personal email once per day. My masters are facebook and text.
- sliverstorm 10y agoPersonal. Work email is there for the calendar sync (very useful), but I feel little compulsion to check it. For a while I completely removed email from my phone, but that was a pain when I legitimately needed, for example, an RMA number while standing in the post office. You're right, rules plus zero notifications would probably work well. Or, perhaps enable notifications and set it to check only once a day.
- marmot777 10y agoYou're actually lucky that email's your poison. It's the most aync mode out there, especially if people adjust to not receiving an immediate response. I have friends that have trained me not to expect an immediate response to texts so I know it's possible to use text more async for everything that's not urgent. If not responding immediately is your default, it's not a break from your normal behavior to delay. I'd like to attempt this one for text as that would remove the temptation to break focus on another activity to check my phone. If I text some people right now with a mundane little thing I know who I will hear back from in 2 minutes, 24 hours, and never. It wasn't worth responding to. That's a good friend, ignores you when you're lame.
- dredmorbius 10y agoHaving worked at multiple organisations who specifically targeted "stickiness" and user-time-on-site as performance (and employee reward) metrics, there's substantial reason to believe that a large part of the tech industry are deliberately exploiting this phenomenon.
- OnLookAStar 10y agoHuh. Weird. I have the opposite issue. Notifications/phone calls actually make me anxious because for the past few years its far more often related to something going wrong at work.
- cle 10y agoI get this same unnerving feeling from most video games, and once I notice it, it's hard to want to continue since I get the feeling of being "duped". Most modern games follow these same principles and it's really infuriating. The games I really enjoy are the ones where the "rewards" are subtle enough that I don't notice that they're consciously trying to addict me. Or games where the "rewards" are self-generated (open-ended games like Minecraft come to mind).