It feels impossible to tell if the technology our kids use should be celebrated or feared. A few years ago I wrote a book, Hooked , about how technology can be used to change our habits. I intended the book to teach startups how to build healthy habits , but now I’m not so sure. With headlines telling us technology is hijacking our brains, I started second guessing the impact of our devices, especially when it comes to our kids. How alarmed should we be? Is this a crisis or a fear frenzy? I want...
May 11, 2020•17 min
Nir's Note: This guest post is written by Jeni Fisher, a London-based Googler who consults startups on applying behavioral insights to achieve business and user goals. Early on in my role as an Apps partner manager at Google Play, I was drawn towards the Self-Improvement apps space because their persuasive influence transcends screen-level interactions. Their mission is to persuade people to take real-life actions that lead to long-term behavior change and ultimately shape how they liv...
May 04, 2020•14 min
Nir’s Note: This guest post is by Patricio O’Gorman , technology consultant and professor at Universidad de Palermo. If you have kids, you’ve likely heard about Fortnite. The wildly popular online battle game has amassed over 125 million players and hosts more than 3 million concurrent players . The game “has brought in more revenue in a single month than any other game of its kind,” according to industry watchers, grossing over $1 billion so far this year. You can read the Nir and Far blog post...
Apr 27, 2020•8 min
When faced with a challenge, where do you find the insight to move your life forward? Last year, over fifteen million books were sold in the self-help genre.1 That doesn’t account for the videos, courses, and workshops that fuel this multibillion-dollar industry. Include business and diet books, and that number balloons to over $1.7 billion spent on advice-seeking books.2 But there’s a secret the gurus don’t want you to know—many of the answers to life’s most important questions can be found ins...
Apr 20, 2020•16 min
You come home after a long day of work and you immediately curl yourself up on the couch and binge the latest Netflix craze for hours, while you scroll and scroll through your social media feeds and snack on potato chips even though you're "on a diet." You look around and see that the garbage needs to be taken out, laundry needs to be folded, and your child's toys are strewn across the living room floor. The list of productive things you could be doing seem endless, yet you can't seem to find th...
Apr 13, 2020•7 min
Our fears about what technology and smartphones are doing to our kids has reached a fever pitch. Articles with headlines like “ Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? ” and “ The Risk Of Teen Depression And Suicide Is Linked To Smartphone Use ” have, ironically enough, gone viral online. “It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades,” writes Dr. Jean Twenge in The Atlantic. “Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones...
Apr 06, 2020•10 min
Nir’s Note: This post part of a series on cognitive bias co-authored by Nir Eyal and illustrated by Lakshmi Mani . Discover other reasons you make terrible life choices like confirmation bias , hyperbolic discounting and distinction bias . There I was, sitting in a packed movie theatre. I waited two years for this sequel and I’ve got enough popcorn and diet soda to last me a full three hours. Fifteen minutes into the movie, the hero and villain are facing off for th...
Mar 30, 2020•9 min
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote that “few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it.”1 Why don't we do what we know needs to get done? Why is it so hard to concentrate and finish what we start? In our digital age, is there any hope of “mustering enough energy” to stay focused on what really matters so we can live the lives we want? In this article, you’ll learn tools and strategies to finally get, and sta...
Mar 23, 2020•14 min
Nir’s Note: This post part of a series on cognitive bias co-authored with and illustrated by Lakshmi Mani . Discover other reasons you make terrible life choices like confirmation bias and hyperbolic discounting . There I was, looking at an enormous wall of television screens. Each one flashed the exact same scene — a beautiful flower slowly blooming to reveal each petal, pistil, and stamen in exquisite super high definition detail. It was downright sexy. But now it was time to make my choice. Y...
Mar 16, 2020•9 min
Does repeating a falsehood make it true? It seems so, at least when it comes to the myth that technology is addicting us all. While a reassessment of the role our gadgets play in our lives is healthy, many people are buying into a self-defeating fallacy that ironically makes it harder to dial back. Not only does the idea that technology “hijacks” our brains smack of the same moral panics leveled at previous pastimes—Novels corrupt women’s minds! Pinball machines create an unstoppable compulsion!...
Mar 09, 2020•10 min
If you make web or mobile products, you’re actually in the business of task management. You’re counting on your product to become a recurring part of your customers’ lives. In order to accomplish that, you have to motivate your users to build a new habit. , Sometimes software companies forget that what they’re building isn’t just a product that people find valuable. Part of what you’re building is how people will find and experience that value. It’s easy to overlook, because it seems like ...
Mar 02, 2020•10 min
Recently, MessageMe announced it had grown to 1 million users in a little over a week's time. The revelation captured the attention of envious app makers throughout Silicon Valley, all of whom are searching for the secrets of customer acquisition like it's the fountain of youth. "Growth hacking" has become the latest buzzword, as investors like Paul Graham profess it's functionally that matters . Clearly, everyone wants growth. To someone creating a new technology, nothing feel...
Feb 24, 2020•7 min
We're in an addictive world. The world has become harder to resist. Products are getting better at giving people what they want and - for the most part - that has been good thing. Yet, the historical trend-line shows products are also becoming more habit-forming. All products alleviate customers’ pain. Even products used to gain pleasure must first generate desire, a unique form of discomfort, which the customer will pay to satiate. You can read the Nir and Far blog post on: Our More Addictive W...
Feb 17, 2020•6 min
Addiction can be a difficult thing to see. From outward appearances, Dr. Zoe Chance looked fine. A professor at the Yale School of Management with a doctorate from Harvard, Chance's pedigree made what she revealed in front of a crowded TEDx audience all the more shocking. "I'm coming clean today telling this story for the very first time in its raw ugly detail," she said. "In March of 2012 ... I purchased a device that would slowly begin to ruin my life." You can read the Nir and Far...
Feb 10, 2020•13 min
Nir's Note: In this guest post, Ryan Hoover describes the design decisions and strategies used to build a habit-forming product, largely influenced by the learnings on this blog. Follow @rrhoover or visit his blog to read more about startups and product design. Recently, Nathan Bashaw and I launched Product Hunt , a daily leaderboard of the best new products. As two product enthusiasts, we wanted to create a community to share, discover, and geek out about new and interesting products. But...
Feb 03, 2020•15 min
Nir’s Note: This guest post comes from Stephen Wendel, Principal Scientist at HelloWallet and the author of Designing for Behavior Change . Steve's new book is about how to apply behavioral economics to product development. Follow him on twitter @sawendel . It can be extraordinarily difficult to stop habits head-on. Brain damage, surgery, even Alzheimer’s disease and dementia sometimes fail to stop them.1But why are they so difficult to change? You can read the Nir and Far blog post on...
Jan 27, 2020•11 min
Nir’s Note: This book review is by Sam McNerney. Sam writes about cognitive psychology, business, and philosophy. Many of us feel we’re drowning in the rising tide of emails, updates, and digital distractions. According to a survey by the Families and Work Institute, the majority of American workers report feeling overwhelmed or overworked. In her new book, Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love, and Play When No One Has The Time , Brigid Schulte acknowledges that although the deluge of to do’s is inevi...
Jan 20, 2020•10 min
Today, there’s an app for just about everything. With all the amazing things our smartphones can do, there is one thing that hasn’t changed since the phone was first developed. No matter how advanced phones become, they are still communication devices — they connect people together. Clearly, we’re a social species and these tech solutions help us re-create the tribal connection we seek. However, there are other more hidden reasons why messaging services keep us checking, pecking, and duckf...
Jan 13, 2020•7 min
Let's admit it, we in the consumer web industry are in the manipulation business. We build products meant to persuade people to do what we want them to do. We call these people "users" and even if we don't say it aloud, we secretly wish every one of them would become fiendishly addicted. Users take our technologies with them to bed . When they wake up, they check for notifications, tweets, and updates before saying "good morning" to their loved ones. Ian Bogost, the famed game creator and profes...
Dec 30, 2019•13 min
My interview with author John Jantsch about his new book, The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur. Nir & Far, a podcast about business, behaviour and the brain by Nir Eyal. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe on iTunes and leave an iTunes review. It will greatly help new listeners discover the show. Please visit my website Nir and Far for other info about my writing, books and teaching: http://www.nirandfar.com/
Dec 23, 2019•19 min
It’s time to abolish the reference check. The unpleasant process of calling up a job applicant’s former boss to gab about the candidate’s pluses and “deltas” is just silly. Maybe if we all just agree to stop doing it the practice will go away, like pay phones and fanny packs. Instead, I’ve learned a better way to hire that leverages a universal human attribute—namely, the fact that we’re all lazy. What’s my beef with reference checks? They don’t accomplish the job we intend them to do. In a star...
Dec 16, 2019•7 min
A reader recently asked me a pointed question: “I’ve read your work on creating user habits . It’s all well and good for getting people to do things, like using an app on their iPhone, but I’ve got a bigger problem. How do I get people to do things they don’t want to do?” Taken aback by the directness and potentially immoral implications of his question, my gut reaction was to say, “You can’t and shouldn’t!” To which his response was, “I have to; it’s my job.” This gentleman, who asked that I no...
Dec 09, 2019•10 min
Nir’s Note: In this guest post, Ryan Hoover, Director of Product at PlayHaven, utilizes my thinking on the “Habit Zone” to shed light on where Turntable.fm fell short. Ryan blogs at ryanhoover.me and you can follow him on Twitter at rrhoover . As I described nearly two years ago, much of Turntable’s success was due to its well-executed social engagement loop ; however, that wasn’t enough. So what went wrong? You can read the Nir and Far blog post on: What Killed Turntable....
Dec 02, 2019•4 min
We in the design business love when people do what we want. Nothing is more satisfying than when a user intuitively understands what to do with what we’ve built. At the heart of good design, however, is understanding what the user really wants to get done. But what of designing for behaviors people don’t want to do, at least not right now? We all know we should eat healthier, exercise more, create fewer greenhouse gases, give more to charity, and vote in every local election from city council to...
Nov 25, 2019•6 min
Nir’s Note: This guest post is by Auren Hoffman , the CEO of LiveRamp in San Francisco. This essay is a bit different from the normal subject matter on the blog but I hope it will stir some discussion about which of our personal habits are worth improving. Connect with Auron on Twitter at @auren or on Facebook . To really differentiate yourself and become a superstar in this winner-take-all world, you should be focusing on improving your strengths, not your weaknesses. You can read the Nir and F...
Nov 18, 2019•6 min
Nir’s Note : This guest post is by James Clear. James writes at JamesClear.com , where he share ideas for mastering personal habits. Join his free newsletter here . In 1936, a man named Kurt Lewin wrote a simple equation that changed the way we think about habits and human behavior. You can read the Nir and Far blog post on: This Simple Equation Reveals How Habits Shape Your Health, Happiness, and Wealth https://www.nirandfar.com/this-simple-equation-reveals-how-habits-shape-your-heal...
Nov 11, 2019•8 min
Nir’s Note: This post was co-authored with Stuart Luman , a science, technology, and business writer who has worked at Wired Magazine, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and IBM . In the never-ending effort to motivate employees, companies are taking cues from video games–adding scoring, virtual badges, and other game-like elements to everyday work processes to make jobs more fun. You can read the Nir and Far blog post on: It's Not All Fun and Games: The Pros and Cons of Gamificat...
Nov 04, 2019•8 min
Nir’s Note: Lyle McKeany is an entrepreneur writing and working on an early-stage startup. In this essay, he shares his experience using lean startup methodologies with my Hook Model at the Lean Startup Machine conference. This article also appears today on Pando Daily . Follow Lyle on Twitter @lylemckeany . The conventional view of lean startup ideation methodology is to identify a problem, test your riskiest assumption with a certain success criterion, talk to potential customers b...
Oct 28, 2019•9 min
Wednesday was my birthday. It should have been a great day. My wife and daughter had prepared a delicious breakfast, I had lunch with close friends, and I finished up some writing and client work. At the end of the day I headed to San Francisco to enjoy a swanky scotch tasting at a friend’s house. Then I heard the news. WhatsApp had been purchased by Facebook for $19 billion. When I read about the deal I blurted out the words, “Holy Crap!” so loudly that a stranger nearby gave me a d...
Oct 21, 2019•6 min
I’ll admit, the bento box is an unlikely place to learn an important business lesson. But consider the California Roll — understanding the impact of this icon of Japanese dining can make all the difference between the success or failure of your product. The California Roll provided a gateway to discover Japanese cuisine and demand exploded. Over the next few decades sushi restaurants, which were once confined to large coastal cities and almost exclusively served Japanese clientele, suddenly...
Oct 14, 2019•8 min
