Former Google people recruited how high-tech companies "take over the user's mind"

Services bought by GoogleAptureMr. Tristan Harris, who served as CEO at the company, explains what technology companies are adopting to increase user dependence on services. Mr. Harris, who has experience with Magic, evaluates that there are places where Magic is familiar with that method because he uses that method well for human psychology.

How Technology Hijacks People's Minds - from a Magician and Google's Design Ethicist - Medium
https://medium.com/@tristanharris/how-technology-hijacks-peoples-minds-from-a-magician-and-google-s-design-ethicist-56d62ef5edf3#.aec83wojz

Most users who use services provided by IT companies tend to think that "convenient services are designed for them," but that is not necessarily the case, Mr. Harris says. IT companies frequently incorporate into "heart vulnerability" that any user has. Mr. Harris' s ten methods to embrace the vulnerability of the heart are as follows.

◆ 01: Control options
In Western culture freedom to decide things yourself is respected. However, at first glance it seems that magicians and IT companies often do things like pretending to be given free choices and depriving them of virtually no choice.


For example, when you want to continue talking with friends even when the night is late,YelpI will consider a scene to search for a shop in. If you make a request saying "Is there any place where you can keep talking somewhere?", You may be able to choose a good shop that displays the surrounding bars all the time. However, at this glance, this scene that seems to have given many choices of shops seems to be limited according to Mr. Harris.


This fact is to be understood by asking Yelp "Do you have a good bar nearby?" The store Yelp recommends is the same as in the case of the previous question "Is there any place I can keep talking somewhere?" That is, the request "Are there any places where you can keep talking somewhere?" Has been conveniently replaced by the request "Is there a good bar nearby?"

Also, it is common for smartphone screens to be occupied in "notification" of various services, but as the amount to be notified increases, it becomes more difficult to understand what you truly need, so be careful .


◆ 02: Slot machine
The average person is said to check the mobile phone 150 times a day. Why so much to check mobile phones is that in rare cases "good things" happen, people are almost there, expecting that "good things" are not happening, checking the mobile phone. This resembles the psychology of getting into the slot machines looking for "low hits" with low probability, Mr. Harris said that "everyone is putting a slot machine in their pocket".

Using this psychology as an opportunity, IT companies intermittently issue various notices to users. Moreover, the remuneration that the user gets by notice is never constant, and it is made variable.


◆ 03: Fear of overlooking important things
Just like slot machines, IT companies will bring in "possibilities to lose opportunities that are only 1%" and bind users. For example, you might miss important information by removing "friends" on SNS that you are estranged from "friends" that you are estranged from "Familiar information that will be offered in the future if you stop the mail service" It is the psychology that such as.

However, Mr. Harris said that if you are sending your daily life "a state of keeping missing important things" is a matter of course, and the concern that you might lose such a chance is unnecessary. If you abandon the fear of "you may miss important things" at least once, you should notice that such inconvenient things do not actually occur, but rather the time spent by such fears Mr. Harris says it will notice another fact that can be used in meaningful ways.

◆ 04: Social Approval
Everyone has desire to approve "I want to be accepted socially." Harris said social approval in modern society is in the hands of high-tech companies.

According to statistical data, it is the teenager who strongly desires social approval, and when thinking about service, it seems that high-tech enterprises are strongly conscious of how teenage approval desire can be satisfied.


◆ 05: Social connection
In the world of SNS, after receiving a friend application, this time there are many procedures to try applying for friends.

For example, if you get approval at LinkedIn, you will receive an invitation "Come now, it's your turn, let's apply for approval." However, Mr. Harris points out that the situation that only four people have to apply, only by receiving approval from one person, it is marvelous if it thinks carefully.


The fact that the opportunity to be invited is more than the opportunity actually invited can not be invited by people on the SNS at their own will, That means that you are inviting.


◆ 06: Endless auto play
Harris said, "The way to tie a user to a service is" let's continue to eat even if you get full. "

Dr. Brian One Sink's famous experiment "Bottomless Bowls"I know that if you give a big dish and a spoon you will not feel full when you eat more ice cream than a small dish and spoon.

Brian Wansink Ice Cream Social - YouTube


IT companies are using the logic that as users increase the size of dishes, users consume more to be satisfied. A typical example is the automatic playing function of YouTube. If the user does not take action, the movie will be played one after another, and you will be forced to take in the movie playback unexpectedly. The IT service can make the size of dishes infinite so that you can not get a sense of satiety.


◆ 07: Instantaneous interruption
All IT companies know that they can "draw more reactions by instantaneously interrupting". Therefore, in order to get a response from users, it seems that Messenger application is useful, not mail that can be read carefully.

Mr. Harris criticizes that the disruption of users to the IT business is preferable, but this is not respectful for users' regardless of their circumstances.

◆ 08: Linking the convenience of the service side to the user's convenience
The first and second most popular items in the American food supermarket are medicine and milk. So, it is known that food supermarkets have come up with a strategy of placing medicines and milk at the innermost part of the store, so that customers can stay at supermarkets for a long time.

Mr. Harris says that IT services are using a similar strategy and increasing opportunities to visit the service. For example, a user who wants to know tonight's event on Facebook has a structure that can not reach event information without accessing the newsfeed with the Facebook application. Facebook has replaced everything the user wants with acts of using Facebook.

◆ 09: inconvenient selection
In the IT service, "You can withdraw at any time if you do not like the service," "If you do not like it, you can use another service," "You can uninstall the app from the smartphone at any time" you have the freedom to choose I will appeal that.

However, it is possible to narrow down the behavior of the user by preparing some "difficulty" to the freedom that the user can choose. For example, you are given the freedom to cancel the New York Times paid subscription option, but to exercise this freedom, you need to speak with an account management representative and call within the designated business hours It is said that you are asked to.


◆ 10: Impossibility of time prediction
Mr. Harris points out that the user can not predict how long it will take to click and that IT service is exploiting this impossible fact.

For example, when you ask for a questionnaire on the Internet, it is often displayed as an assumed time, but users who accepted the time for guidance are often forced to pay more effort. In the sales world "Foot in the doorThere is a technique known as "known. This is a technique to make a big step by step from the small request by utilizing the human psychology that it tends to drink the next request once you drink the other's request. By agreeing to be predicted time constraint, the user will hear "bigger wish".


As mentioned above, Mr. Harris, who revealed the method by which IT companies are reversing the user's psychology at the time of service provision, said that acts that misuse such human psychology for companies that should become leaders like Google and Apple It seems that she wishes that she will become a model for correcting order by abstaining from it.