Nir Eyal: evaluation

Transcript context

…Awesome. Okay. For our last topic, I wanted to spend some time on Hooked, which I think could be its own podcast. That could be a whole other episode of your first book that did really well. And essentially, this book, Hooked, is about teaching people how to get people hooked on their product. I know that you have this very contrarian perspective on, are we actually addicted to technology? Is it hurting mental health? All these things. So, this is contrarian corner. I'd love to hear your perspective on just, why is it that we're not as hooked on social media and technology as people think? Yeah. Okay, so there's a lot there. So, let me explain what Hooked was for compared to Indistractable. So, Hooked is about how do we build habit-forming products for good. And so, the idea there was that I think we need to use more of these techniques when it comes to healthy behaviors. We want people to get hooked to a language learning app. Duolingo, one of my former clients. That's a great thing that they found ways to get people hooked to learning a new language compared to the way we used to learn languages. Getting people hooked to exercise. One of the case studies in Hooked is Fitbot, which is an app that helps people form these habits around exercise. Getting hooked to a personal finance app to help you save money, getting hooked to enterprise software. That's all great, right? If it helps you become more productive, helps you live a happier, healthier life, that's wonderful. So, nobody's worried about people getting addicted to enterprise SaaS. That's not an issue. So, the vast majority of products out there, they're not worried about addicting anyone. The real problem the vast majority of businesses out there have is that nobody cares. They have a wonderful product that could really improve people's lives, but people aren't using it. And so, it's really about how do you get people to keep coming back to your product or service, not because they have to, but because they want to. And so, what essentially I do at Hooked is steal the secrets of these Silicon Valley giants. I literally ripped out their psychology to understand what makes their products work so well, so that everybody in every conceivable industry that is devoted to improving people's lives can use those habits for good. So, that's what Hooked is for. So, if Hooked is about good habits, Indistractable is about how do we break bad habits, but for different products, we want to build a good habit with the exercise app, with these SaaS app, with the good habits, and we also want to break the bad habits. So, that's the two sides of the same coin. They're not negations, they're complements. And I think I am uniquely qualified to write both these books because I know these techniques work and I know where they don't work. And I can tell you, having written Hooked, these techniques are very good. They're very effective. They're not that good. This isn't mind control. We're not hijacking people's brains. And there's a lot of people out there, a lot of tech critics have made a lot of money and gotten a lot of speaking gigs over scaring the crap out of people because people love that stuff. I was a journalism co-major in college, and the first rule of journalism is if it bleeds, it leads. So, you can get a lot more attention and a lot more press, a lot more invites to Ted Talks if you tell people, "Technology is melting your brain, it's super evil. Let's shut it all down." This is the classic chicken little story. People love that stuff. ress, a lot more invites to Ted Talks if you tell people, "Technology is melting your brain, it's super evil. Let's shut it all down." This is the classic chicken little story. People love that stuff. The truth is much more nuanced, but nobody likes nuance. Nobody likes the answer to every complex question, which is always the same. "It depends. It depends." For some people, overusing technology is a real problem. So, for people who are pathologically addicted, that can be very harmful because, what is the definition of addiction? An addiction is a compulsive dependency on a behavior or substance that harms the user. Now, that's about 3% to 5% of the population is pathologically addicted, but we toss out this word addiction all the time. Everything's addictive. My wife ordered a shoes from DSW, and on the box it says, "Danger, addictive contents inside." It's shoes, people. Shoes. And so, what we have done by pathologizing, by medicalizing this behavior is that now, everything's an addiction. "Oh, you like playing Candy Crush? It's addictive. You like social media. It's addictive." No, it's not addictive to everyone. No more than saying, "Hey, a lot of people have a glass of wine with dinner, but not everyone's an alcoholic. So, why do we think everyone who uses social media is addicted?" They're not. But we love that terminology. We love it. Why? Because even the word addiction comes from the Latin addictio, which means slave. So, it's much easier to tell ourselves, "I'm enslaved. My brain is being hijacked. My focus is being stolen. It's all Silicon Valley's fault." As opposed to saying, "Wait a minute, this isn't really a distraction." I'm sorry. "It's not really an addiction, it's a distraction," because then now I have personal responsibility. Now, I have to do something about it. That's no fun. Can I just blame somebody? But for the vast majority of people, save the people who are actually pathologically addicted, which by the way, I do think we need special protections for. If you're not a child who I do think we need special protections for, and you're not pathologically addicted, this is a personal responsibility issue that thankfully, all of us can overcome if we have the right tools.…

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