Welcome to the second episode of ‘exposing the simple nosy strategies that keep you glued to your phone.’ Today, we will look at another very basic but effective strategy that makes you subconsciously pick up your phone so many times in a day. This persuasive strategy is called ‘Suggestion’.
The Suggestion strategy refers implementation of prompts that nudge users toward a target behaviour. This is a strategy that affects almost every mobile phone user. Almost every app on your mobile phone implements a kind of prompt. They manifest in various forms, including, sounds that prompt you to check your app messages, popup notifications that appear at the top of your screen to notify you of a pending app activity, vibrations that alert you of app notifications, or just the simple red notification badges that appear on your social media app icons when you have unread notifications.
These suggestions are intentionally implemented to keep you going back to the app. They can effortlessly break your focus on your current task whenever they manifest. App developers take advantage of psychological triggers to maintain this reaction. It is the same concept used by Ivan Pavlov in his experiment of training dogs to associate mealtime with the ring of a bell. Although humans are not dogs, it has been shown that you can elicit an involuntary physical response from humans with a simple stimulus that they can associate with positive or interesting feelings. One of the main reasons why you keep picking up that phone each time it vibrates or beeps is because of your curiosity or anticipation of the positive experience that notification may offer.
One would assume that a simple way of overcoming this strategy is to simply turn off the notifications in the phone settings. The problem is this: although these notifications can be very distracting and disruptive, they tend to be needed for the effective and timely usage of app features.
So, what can we do as users to reduce the effects of this strategy? Turn off or turn on all notifications? The Devil or the Deep Blue Sea?
Thankfully, the owners of the Android operating system and the IOS have started enforcing app developers to implement functionalities that allow users to turn off notifications for various items on their apps by themselves. This gives mobile phone users the power to select what notifications are important to them and block the rest. However, some developers intentionally implement these settings in locations that may not be easily accessible by average mobile app users.
Therefore, every time you hear that beep from your phone, every time it vibrates, every time it shows up that little popup on the top of the screen, just remember the Suggestion strategy – that little nosy strategy that keeps you glued to your phone.
I’ll see you all next month for another episode!
Image source: Freepik
