Techno today will review our dependence on smartphones. Have you ever played games on your smartphone for a long time? Or keep checking Instagram app? Take it easy, it's not entirely your fault.
The designers and developers behind all the popular applications are deliberately designing applications that are addictive. One example of this planned form of addiction is the never-ending scrolling activity, sharing stories with friends constantly, checking periodic notifications.
Hooked Model, the "mass puller" marketing method, created by Nir Eyal, is arguably responsible for our dependence on smartphones. Eyal is a writer and marketing expert is indeed expert in designing the attitude of smartphone users. Hooked Model described Eyal in his book Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products (2013).
As quoted from The Next Web technology news page, there are four parts of the Hooked Model designed by Eyal: trigger, action, reward variable, and investment. The more often users pass through these stages, the stronger the habits are formed.
Triggers are the first step of a habit. There are two types of triggers, namely the internal trigger and external trigger. Internal trigger is the user's desire, while the external trigger is what affects the user to perform certain actions.
Examples of internal triggers are boredom. Usually, people will play the phone when they are bored and need entertainment. The act of playing a smartphone when bored is then formed a habit.
Meanwhile, an example of an external trigger is a notification. Every time you see the notification symbol on your phone, you will experience increased dopamine (pleasure hormone), so immediately hastily open the notification.
Action is the second stage. The technology news page The Next Web explains, action is all the things that users do to get a certain award. Certain activities such as app scrolling, restaurant search, to watching videos on a smartphone are an action.
Take the Tinder app example. When looking for a mate, users have to filter out a lot of people. Swipe left if you do not like that person, or swipe right if you're interested in that person. This action is because the user is pursuing an award, in this case a dating partner.
Variable rewards are the third stage. Variable rewards are rewards given to users based on the intensity of application usage. This award is almost like a slot machine. You do not know when to get a reward. Even so, you must continue to play to get the prize.
Some examples of awards that users say are likes, retweets, comments, and game level increases. An app typically performs periodic updates to allow user-acceptable accolades to vary within a certain period of time.
The last stage of the Hooked Model is investment. As explained in the technology news page of The Next Web, investment is everything that users do and increases the likelihood of being tied to the application. Some examples of this investment include upload photos, buy paid features, fill out a profile on an app, and win a game level on the phone.
Facebook is an example of good investment. People love uploading their photos, sharing things with friends, and so on. It makes users have an attachment to Facebook, given the many things they have shared in Facebook.
After reading the above explanation, you understand if the habit of opening Instagram every minute on the smartphone is not your fault. However, after understanding how the app works to trap its users, what would you do? Everything is in your hands.