Chapter #100. Don't Join the Dark Side

People check their smartphones a lot. One reason for this is that, in some way, it's a gamble. You check your phone and maybe there are no notifications or maybe there's a "red blob." Maybe someone's "liked" your Facebook post or someone's "faved" your Instagram picture of your brunch or your pet.

Each time you get a notification, you feel happy—your brain releases a little bit of dopamine. So, you wait a little while and you check your phone again, hoping for the same result and reinforcing the addictive behavior loop.

This isn't an accident. Many modern products, especially social media, are d esigned to be addictive. In Hooked—A Guide to Building Habit-Forming Products, Portfolio Penguin, 2014 (https://amzn.to/2pItKo0), psychologist Nir Eyal proposes the Hook Model: "A four-step process that, when embedded into products, subtly encourages customer behavior.

Through consecutive 'hook cycles,' these products bring people back again and again without depending...