Steve Jobs never let his children use an I-Pad and Bill Gates didn't let his children use phones until they were 14 years old. Creators of technology know how addictive screens can get. People spend an average of 6 hours and 37 minutes on the internet.
And there's good reason why we cant stop scrolling.
Devices are Designed to be Addictive.
Goal Pursuit: Our ancestors pursued goals that ensured the survival of our species. The goals can be boiled down to survival and mate selection. We have access to all our basic needs today but the ancestor in us desires to accomplish a couple of goals. Like maintaining a Snap streak or seeing that 14,000 steps in the smartwatch.
Feedback: A good post would get you a number of likes making you likelier to repeat such behavior. Users are constantly treated with flashy colorful signs that reinforce such behavior in games like Candy Crush.
Social comparison: There were times when, all we used WhatsApp for was to text each other. Then gradually came in WhatsApp status which saw huge popularity. Users can now share their daily activities, achievements and thoughts. It naturally makes us compare our lives to other users.
Gambling machine: News feeds, YouTube Shorts, Instagram reels are designed to keep you scrolling akin to a gambling machine. It creates a false reality that you have control of the feed since you can scroll down with a flick of a finger, secondly by giving you a dose of weird, whacky videos out of the blue, shoots up dopamine as if you won a Jackpot.
Learning to use our devices, to promote businesses, learn new things and spread awareness is essential. One must be self aware of how much time they spend on such devices.
Comentarios