2064: [Part 2] The Hooked Model: How to Manufacture Desire in 4 Steps By Nir Eyal of NirAndFar on Driving User Engagement

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[00:01:00] This is Optimal Work Daily. The Hooked Model. How to manufacture desire in four steps. Part 2. By Nir Eyal of NirandFar.com. 3. Variable Reward. What separates hooks from a plain vanilla feedback loop is their ability to create wanting in the user. Feedback loops are all around us, but predictable ones don't create desire.

[00:01:26] The predictable response of your fridge light turning on when you open the door doesn't drive you to keep opening it again and again. However, add some variability to the mix. Say a different treat magically appears in your fridge every time you open it. And voila. Intrigue is created. You'll be opening that door like a lab animal in a Skinner box. Variable schedules of reward are one of the most powerful tools that companies use to hook users. Research shows that levels of dopamine surge when the brain is expecting a reward.

[00:01:56] Just ask any primate. Introducing variability multiplies the effect, creating a frenzied hunting state, activating the parts associated with wanting and desire. Although classic examples include slot machines and lotteries, variable rewards are prevalent in habit-forming technologies as well. When Barbara lands on Pinterest, not only does she see the image she intended to find, but she's also served a multitude of other glittering objects.

[00:02:23] The images are associated with what she's generally interested in. Cute farm animals, farmhouse antiques, Pennsylvania landscapes. But there are some others that catch her eye also. The exciting juxtaposition of relevant and irrelevant, tantalizing and plain, beautiful and common, sets her brain's dopamine system aflutter with the promise of reward. Now she's spending more time on the site, hunting for the next wonderful thing to find. Before she knows it, she's spent 45 minutes scrolling in search of her next hit.

[00:02:54] And four, investment. The last phase of the hook is where the user is asked to do a bit of work. This phase has two goals as far as the behavior engineer is concerned. The first is to increase the odds that the user will make another pass through the hook when presented with the next trigger. Second, now that the user's brain is swimming in dopamine from the anticipation of reward in the previous phase, it's time to pay some bills.

[00:03:18] The investment generally comes in the form of asking the user to give some combination of time, data, effort, social capital, or money. But unlike a sales funnel, which has a set endpoint, the investment phase isn't about consumers opening up their wallets and moving on with their day. The investment implies an action that improves the service for the next go-round.

[00:03:39] Inviting friends, stating preferences, building virtual assets, and learning to use new features are all commitments that improve the service for the user. These investments can be leveraged to make the trigger more engaging, the action easier, and the reward more exciting with every pass through the hook. As Barbara enjoys endlessly scrolling the Pinterest cornucopia, she builds a desire to keep the things that delight her. By collecting items, she'll be giving the site data about her preferences.

[00:04:08] Soon she will follow, pin, repin, and make other investments, which serve to increase her ties to the site and prime her for future loops through the hook. Habits are a superpower. A reader recently wrote to me, If it can't be used for evil, it's not a superpower. He's right. And under this definition, habit design is indeed a superpower. If used for good, habits can enhance people's lives with entertaining and even healthful routines.

[00:04:37] If used to exploit, habits can turn into wasteful addictions. But, like it or not, habit-forming technology is already here. The fact that we have greater access to the web through our various devices also gives companies greater access to us. As companies combine this greater access with the ability to collect and process our data at higher speeds than ever before, we're faced with a future where everything becomes more addictive.

[00:05:03] This trinity of access, data, and speed creates new opportunities for habit-forming technologies to hook users. Companies need to know how to harness the power of hooks to improve people's lives, while consumers need to understand the mechanics of behavior engineering to protect themselves from unwanted manipulation. Here's the gist. The degree to which a company can utilize a hooked model to develop habit-forming technologies will increasingly decide which products and services succeed or fail.

[00:05:33] Habit-forming technology creates associations with internal triggers, which cue users without the need for marketing, messaging, or other external stimuli. Creating associations with internal triggers comes from building the four components of a hook. A trigger, action, variable reward, and investment. Consumers must understand how habit-forming technology works to prevent unwanted manipulation while still enjoying the benefits of these innovations.

[00:06:01] And companies must understand the mechanics of habit formation to increase engagement with their products and services and ultimately help users create beneficial routines. You just listened to part two of the post titled, The Hooked Model, How to Manufacture Desire in Four Steps, by Nir Eyal of NirandFar.com. Good sleep is everything.

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[00:07:25] He holds a degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business, has sold multiple companies, taught at two different schools at Stanford, and he's a best-selling author as well. You can find his book, Indistractable, on Amazon, and he's got an excellent blog, which is where this post for today comes from. And you can find that at nearandfar.com. For more insights on using psychology to change behavior, you can join Nir's newsletter and receive a free workbook, also at nearandfar.com. And again, Nir in the site name is spelled,

[00:07:55] just like his actual name, which is N-I-R. And thanks so much to him for letting us share his work across our podcasts for years now. All right, that's going to do it for today. I hope you enjoyed this two-parter from Nir, and I'll be back again with you tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits.