Zip, whoosh, boink, Ta-dah, ding! Add red dots, alert boxes and brightly colored notices and our cell phones tinker with the habit-forming parts of our brains to keep us coming back to them. Nicole Bayes-Fleming explains how those trigger-action-reward systems are integrated in persuasive design to be habit-forming.
The average person spends a combined total of one entire day per week checking their phone. . . that constant connection is not making us feel closer to our loved ones—it’s actually leading to feelings of unhappiness.
Source: Mindful, January 25, 2019. Link. There are small steps we can take to reduce the amount of time we spend hooked to our phone and reduce the operant conditioning cycles:
- Delete useless apps
- Keep your phone out of reach
- Turn off push notifications
- Track how much time you spend scrolling on your phone
- Think hard about your motivations
INSIGHTS: I recently turned off notifications on everything but texts, calendar alerts and incoming calls. The smartphone minutes I used were cut in half in less than a week. The refreshing result is more time for reading, relaxing and thinking.