Grabbing Our Attention
Grabbing Our Attention
Advertising agencies and internet companies use various psychological tricks to grab our attention and then keep us engaged on their apps or websites. There are, of course, codes of conduct, which they should follow, but these can be hard to police on the internet. [The box below has an extract from the ASA Code that applies in the UK.]
Page Content
1 Persuasive Design
"Facebook is the daddy of persuasive design... Every 'like' is a reward for you... And it's all subconscious: you don't realise it's happening." James Reevell
Persuasive design
involves, in essence, understanding how we think and react to different stimuli, and designing content accordingly. Advertisers do this by:
1) understanding our behaviour psychology (ie what motivates us and why — our decisions are primarily emotional
not rational) as well as the issue context (e.g. why would we might want to be vaccinated against flu, beyond wellness);
2) creating a message or meme that leverages the emotion that is most likely to change our behaviour or get us to click on 'buy'; and
3) ensuring that we are actively engaged and involved, and not passively sitting back and simply absorbing information; then triggering the emotions in Step 2.
2) creating a message or meme that leverages the emotion that is most likely to change our behaviour or get us to click on 'buy'; and
3) ensuring that we are actively engaged and involved, and not passively sitting back and simply absorbing information; then triggering the emotions in Step 2.
One of the commonly used tactics is gamification
— adapting tasks so that they take on the form of a game. This is said to improve user-engagement and ease of use, and the overall usefulness of the material or system. Another technique is the careful use of colour — red is more likely to provoke an unconscious reaction than say yellow [this is discussed in the video].
Of course, this process can be even more effective if it is informed by psychometric profiling
and the use of microtargeting.
Psychometric profiling is a procedure for analysing and measuring people’s interests, attitudes, abilities, mental capability, shopping habits, likely voting preferences, etc. Microtargeting is transmitting a tailored message to a particular subgroup on the basis of unique information about that subgroup obtained from records of their interests, likes, aspirations, and behaviour on-line scraped [1] from a variety of sources, not least social media and search engine use.
The adjacent list has just appeared on Facebook, inviting users to provide all sorts of personal information about themselves, and their friends, and about their relationship with others. Many people, especially the young, many not appreciate just how valuable such information is to companies, politicians and ne'erdowells, and how it may / will be used...
Psychometric profiling is a procedure for analysing and measuring people’s interests, attitudes, abilities, mental capability, shopping habits, likely voting preferences, etc. Microtargeting is transmitting a tailored message to a particular subgroup on the basis of unique information about that subgroup obtained from records of their interests, likes, aspirations, and behaviour on-line scraped [1] from a variety of sources, not least social media and search engine use.
The adjacent list has just appeared on Facebook, inviting users to provide all sorts of personal information about themselves, and their friends, and about their relationship with others. Many people, especially the young, many not appreciate just how valuable such information is to companies, politicians and ne'erdowells, and how it may / will be used...
Freedom and Persuasion in the Attention Economy
"Digital technologies privilege our impulses
over our intentions. They are increasingly designed to exploit our psychological vulnerabilities in order to direct us toward goals that may or may not align with our own. In the short term, this can distract us from doing the things we want to do. In the longer term, however, it can distract us from living the lives we want to live, or, even worse, undermine our capacities for reflection and self-regulation, making it harder, in the words of philosopher Harry Frankfurt, to ‘want what we want to want.’ A primary effect of digital technologies is thus to undermine the operation and even development of the human will. This militates against the possibility of all forms of self-determination at both individual and collective levels, including all
forms of politics worth having."James Williams (former Google
advertising strategist) [2]
2 Techniques That Grab Our Attention
Here are some of the techniques that are used to grab (and keep) our attention:
• Appeals to FoMO — companies / campaigns appealing to our 'Fear of Missing Out' (defined below), for example on a sale, deal or one-off event; a common technique is to include a countdown timer so that people feel under pressure.
• Dark Ads on Social Media — adverts targeted by political brands or campaigns with specific messages honed to the recipient's personality using psychographic profiling and clever algorithms.
• Appeals to FoMO — companies / campaigns appealing to our 'Fear of Missing Out' (defined below), for example on a sale, deal or one-off event; a common technique is to include a countdown timer so that people feel under pressure.
• Dark Ads on Social Media — adverts targeted by political brands or campaigns with specific messages honed to the recipient's personality using psychographic profiling and clever algorithms.
• Push Notification
— a message that pops up on a mobile device, for example to show the latest football scores, flags a forthcoming event, provides a local traffic or weather report, notifies of changes in a flight you've booked, etc. These can be sent at any time and don't get caught in spam filters (or forgotten in an email inbox), and click-through rates can be much higher than with email.
• Nudging
— using small stimuli to influence people’s behaviour. [3]
• Rich Notification — a notification that may contain images, as well as action buttons (which let users take immediate action, for example, to see more information, open an app, etc.).
Some of the more malign forms of persuasive design (used by malefactors, criminals, terrorists and hostile powers) include:
• Dark Patterning — carefully crafting a user interface so as to trick site visitors into doing things unknowingly when purchasing on line, such as buying insurance or signing up for recurring bills.
• Rich Notification — a notification that may contain images, as well as action buttons (which let users take immediate action, for example, to see more information, open an app, etc.).
Some of the more malign forms of persuasive design (used by malefactors, criminals, terrorists and hostile powers) include:
• Dark Patterning — carefully crafting a user interface so as to trick site visitors into doing things unknowingly when purchasing on line, such as buying insurance or signing up for recurring bills.
• Gaslighting — a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt hoping to make targeted individuals or members of a group question their recollections, perception or sanity. Proponents also use persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction and lying in their attempts to destabilize people and delegitimize their beliefs. [4]
• Mind gaming
— psychologically manipulative behaviour intended to discomfit another person or gain an advantage over them.
3 How We React / Take the Bait
Ad agencies employ emotional triggers
to stimulate a reaction (desire, anxiety, guilt, shame, etc.) and then target their messages accordingly.[5] But people are complex and can be stubborn, compusive, irrational and inconsistent. Here are some of the ways we can react to new ideas, images or information:
Inertia
Inertia
• Status Quo Bias
— bias in favour of things staying the same (people prefer to do nothing or stick with a decision made previously). This may happen even when only small transition costs are involved and the decision is important
• Sunk Cost Fallacy — individuals commit the 'sunk cost fallacy' when they continue a behaviour or endeavour because they have previously invested time, money or effort in it, for example, ordering too much food at a restaurant and then over-eating ‘to get their money’s worth’.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy — individuals commit the 'sunk cost fallacy' when they continue a behaviour or endeavour because they have previously invested time, money or effort in it, for example, ordering too much food at a restaurant and then over-eating ‘to get their money’s worth’.
Concerns about Smartphones
There is no doubt that the internet and social media has had a profound impact on the young, especially since the introduction of touch-screen smartphones (in 2000) and the IPhone (2007). But the jury is out as to what this portends: some argue that smartphones / tablets can encourage children to read and develop their imagination / communication skills; others, that their introduction is leading to a range of conditions from mobile-phone addiction, sleep deprivation, depression and reduced attention span,* to illiteracy, superficiality in relationships, and problems with their sexual development.And should we be concerned that Facebook
is now actively working on technology to read your brainwaves so that you don’t have to look down at your phone to type emails, you can just think them?
* It is reported that the authorities in Augsburg, Germany, have actually embedded pedestrian traffic lights in the pavement for people not paying attention as they walk along, the so-called ‘smombies’ (smartphone + zombies). What next?
* It is reported that the authorities in Augsburg, Germany, have actually embedded pedestrian traffic lights in the pavement for people not paying attention as they walk along, the so-called ‘smombies’ (smartphone + zombies). What next?
Inconsistancy & Bias
• Cognitive Dissonance — the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioural decisions and attitude change (see here for examples and practical applications).
• Endowment Effect — people place a greater value on things once they have established ownership. (This is especially true for items with symbolic, experiential or emotional significance that wouldn’t normally be bought or sold on the market.)
• Cognitive Dissonance — the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioural decisions and attitude change (see here for examples and practical applications).
• Endowment Effect — people place a greater value on things once they have established ownership. (This is especially true for items with symbolic, experiential or emotional significance that wouldn’t normally be bought or sold on the market.)
• Hyper-reality
— an inability to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced postmodern societies.
• Illusory Truth Effect — tendency to believe information to be correct after repeated exposure.[6]
• Loss Aversion — a state of mind where the pain of losing is psychologically more powerful than the pleasure of winning or acquiring; people tend to be more willing to take risks to avoid a loss.[7]
• Truth Bias — a phenomenon that allows society and commerce to run efficiently; involves people wanting to believe others despite evidence to the contrary.
• Illusory Truth Effect — tendency to believe information to be correct after repeated exposure.[6]
• Loss Aversion — a state of mind where the pain of losing is psychologically more powerful than the pleasure of winning or acquiring; people tend to be more willing to take risks to avoid a loss.[7]
• Truth Bias — a phenomenon that allows society and commerce to run efficiently; involves people wanting to believe others despite evidence to the contrary.
Jealosy & Belonging
• Emotional Anaemia — sense that what you are getting from your online social group is emotion-light.[8]
• Emotional Anaemia — sense that what you are getting from your online social group is emotion-light.[8]
• Fear of Missing Out — a form of social anxiety; the feeling that others might be having a good time / rewarding experiences without you. FoMO
is characterized by a desire to stay continually connected and know what others are doing. It is perceived to have a negative influence on people's psychological health and well-being and to contribute to feelings of isolation, emptiness, perhaps triggering bad moods or depression.[9]
• Status Anxiety— an anxiety about what others think of us; the fear of being perceived by society as a ‘looser’ / materially unsuccessful.[10]
Rejection & Unintended Consequences
• Backfire Effect — when people's deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, their beliefs get stronger.
• Boomerang Effect — the unintended consequences of an attempt to persuade others that results in their adopting the opposing position.
• Streisand Effect — where an attempt to hide, remove or censor a piece of information backfires catastrophically and ends up publicizing the information more widely.[11]
• Backfire Effect — when people's deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, their beliefs get stronger.
• Boomerang Effect — the unintended consequences of an attempt to persuade others that results in their adopting the opposing position.
• Streisand Effect — where an attempt to hide, remove or censor a piece of information backfires catastrophically and ends up publicizing the information more widely.[11]
Misleading Advertising
In the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority’s Code of Conduct on Non-broadcast Advertising
states (amongst other things) that:• Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. [3.1]
• Obvious exaggerations (‘puffery’) and claims that the average consumer who sees the marketing communication is unlikely to take literally are allowed provided they do not materially mislead. [3.2]
• Marketing communications... must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner. [3.3]
• Marketing communications must not imply that expressions of opinion are objective claims. [3.6]
• Marketing communications must not mislead consumers by exaggerating the capability or performance of a product. [3.12]
• Marketing communications must not suggest that their claims are universally accepted if a significant division of informed or scientific opinion exists. [3.13]
Material information is information that the consumer needs to make informed decisions in relation to a product. Whether the omission or presentation of material information is likely to mislead the consumer depends on the context, the medium and, if the medium of the marketing communication is constrained by time or space, the measures that the marketer takes to make that information available to the consumer by other means.
4 Should You Deactivate Your Social Media Account?
Much has been written about the psychological benefit and harm associated with social media.[12] But how do we compare the two? Clearly we need to do this using a common currency. Jonathan Reid Surovell has had a go in a recent article. Since the 1960s, he writes, "psychologists have been developing concepts of happiness that ground just this kind of measurement and comparison. The aspect of happiness that has received the most attention in this research is called ‘avowed happiness’ or ‘subjective well-being.’ This refers to the subject’s own assessment of how well they’re doing. It measures how good their life or mood seems to them.”
“There are two major, relatively independent categories of subjective well-being: mood (sometimes referred to as ‘affective well-being’) and life satisfaction. Mood has to do with the constant flow of positive and negative emotions and feelings.” It has been characterised as “the extent to which a person feels enthusiastic, active, and alert” (as opposed to angry, contemptuous, disgusted, guilty, scared, and nervous). “Life satisfaction, by contrast, has to do with how well people believe their lives on the whole to be going.” (Image from CET.)
Surovell argues that our addiction to social media is associated with psychological disorders like depression, insomnia, and anxiety disorders, and that many of us have good reason to close our accounts. “The major social media platforms are designed to condition their users to spend more time on them… As profit-seeking corporations, [they] have been changing our behavior in ways that maximize their profits. And this means getting and keeping our attention, whether we want to give it or not. The more attention a social media platform gets, the more advertising revenue it will receive. Social media condition us to devote our attention to them by channelling the chemical signals of social approval and entertainment (dopamine) into the region of the brain responsible for cravings and addiction (the nucleus accumbens).”
Social Media Controls in Taiwan
In Jan 2015, the Taiwanese Government updated the Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act
to expand its restrictions into the realm of electronic media. The revision to the law applies to children under the age of 18 and stipulates that children are no longer to be allowed to use electronic products for “an unreasonable amount of time”. While the revision doesn’t cite what a reasonable amount of time is, parents and guardians could be fined as much as NT$50,000 (about US $1,600) for any use of electronics judged to have caused physical or mental illness for a child. Other revisions were added to the Act at the same time, including a note banning children under two from using many types of electronic gadgets. [Find out more here.]“By deactivating [our accounts] we escape the harms of social media, inflict fewer of these harms on our friends, and stop contributing to social media platforms’ mental hijacking of our friends. Deactivation may also pressure social media companies into ethical reforms. If the harmful features… cost them enough users [and profit] they will be forced to re-think their inclusion of these harmful features.”
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Notes
1 Data scraping
is a technique in which a computer program extracts data from human-readable output coming from another program.
2 Quote from James Williams' winning 2017 entry for the Nine Dots Prize, 'Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Persuasion in the Attention Economy' (which is now in book form).
2 Quote from James Williams' winning 2017 entry for the Nine Dots Prize, 'Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Persuasion in the Attention Economy' (which is now in book form).
3 Nudge Theory
proposes positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions to try to achieve non-forced compliance to influence the motives, incentives and decision making of groups and individuals. The theory claims to be at least as effective, if not more effective, than direct instruction, legislation or enforcement. Nudges can be effective because they give people control while also giving them useful information. Ultimately the recipient of the nudge still decides whether to use the feedback provided. Nudges don’t feel coercive, rather, potentially empowering.
4 The term owes its origin to a 1938 play 'Gas Light'.
5 Off-line, an emotional trigger could be some action or event, such as a mean or spiteful comment, or an expression of anger or disapproval, or even inability to contact someone, ie something that causes an emotional reaction (which the perpetrator may or may not be aware of, perhaps something that has its origins in some childhood event).
6 The Illusory Truth Effect is also known as the ‘Truth Effect’, the ‘Validity Effect’, or the ‘Frequency-Validity Relationship.’ It has been equated by some with the concept of ‘truthiness’. One science writer has explained it as follows: "Why are so many people convinced that we only use 10% of our brains, or that Eskimos have no words for snow...?" The answer is the truth effect.
7 Loss aversion is an important concept associated with Prospect Theory; it has been used to explain the endowment effect and sunk cost fallacy, and it may also play a role in the status quo bias.
8 The term emotional anaemia was proposed by Aleks Krotoski in her book ‘Untangling the Web’, where she recalled psychologist Robin Dunbar’s 1998 ‘Social Brain Hypothesis”, which suggested that humans can only maintain 150 meaningful relationships — not 500 or more ‘friends’ that people today may have on social media.
9 Self-Determination Theory asserts that the feeling of relatedness or connectedness with others is a legitimate psychological need that influences people's psychological health. FoMO appears to be negatively correlated with age, with men more likely than women to report the condition. Before social media and mobile phones, we only knew what our friends were doing by being with them; today we can find out what we’re missing or have missed by clicking of a button...
10 The term was coined by Alain De Botton in his 2004 book, ‘Status Anxiety’ (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin Books). De Botton suggests that the causes of status anxiety are ‘lovelessness, expectation, meritocracy, snobbery and dependence’. His ‘solutions’ include: ‘philosophy, art, politics, religion and bohemianism’.
11 The term alludes to Barbra Streisand who filed a US$ 50 million lawsuit in an attempt to remove an aerial photograph of her Californian mansion from a publicly available collection of 12,000 coastline photographs. Before Streisand filed her lawsuit, 'Image 3850' had been downloaded from the photographer’s website only 6 times (including twice by Streisand's attorneys). As a result of the case more than 420,000 people visited the site over the following month; the lawsuit was dismissed and Streisand was ordered to pay legal fees.
12 Watch the short video by the Royal Society for Public Health, 'What's your #StatusOfMind?' on the Video Page.
4 The term owes its origin to a 1938 play 'Gas Light'.
5 Off-line, an emotional trigger could be some action or event, such as a mean or spiteful comment, or an expression of anger or disapproval, or even inability to contact someone, ie something that causes an emotional reaction (which the perpetrator may or may not be aware of, perhaps something that has its origins in some childhood event).
6 The Illusory Truth Effect is also known as the ‘Truth Effect’, the ‘Validity Effect’, or the ‘Frequency-Validity Relationship.’ It has been equated by some with the concept of ‘truthiness’. One science writer has explained it as follows: "Why are so many people convinced that we only use 10% of our brains, or that Eskimos have no words for snow...?" The answer is the truth effect.
7 Loss aversion is an important concept associated with Prospect Theory; it has been used to explain the endowment effect and sunk cost fallacy, and it may also play a role in the status quo bias.
8 The term emotional anaemia was proposed by Aleks Krotoski in her book ‘Untangling the Web’, where she recalled psychologist Robin Dunbar’s 1998 ‘Social Brain Hypothesis”, which suggested that humans can only maintain 150 meaningful relationships — not 500 or more ‘friends’ that people today may have on social media.
9 Self-Determination Theory asserts that the feeling of relatedness or connectedness with others is a legitimate psychological need that influences people's psychological health. FoMO appears to be negatively correlated with age, with men more likely than women to report the condition. Before social media and mobile phones, we only knew what our friends were doing by being with them; today we can find out what we’re missing or have missed by clicking of a button...
10 The term was coined by Alain De Botton in his 2004 book, ‘Status Anxiety’ (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin Books). De Botton suggests that the causes of status anxiety are ‘lovelessness, expectation, meritocracy, snobbery and dependence’. His ‘solutions’ include: ‘philosophy, art, politics, religion and bohemianism’.
11 The term alludes to Barbra Streisand who filed a US$ 50 million lawsuit in an attempt to remove an aerial photograph of her Californian mansion from a publicly available collection of 12,000 coastline photographs. Before Streisand filed her lawsuit, 'Image 3850' had been downloaded from the photographer’s website only 6 times (including twice by Streisand's attorneys). As a result of the case more than 420,000 people visited the site over the following month; the lawsuit was dismissed and Streisand was ordered to pay legal fees.
12 Watch the short video by the Royal Society for Public Health, 'What's your #StatusOfMind?' on the Video Page.
