Article Archives
Here you’ll find all of our articles on topics on personal behavior design and consumer psychology. Whether designing customer behaviors or your own habits, you’ll benefit from understanding the research I share from user experience design, behavioral economics, and neuroscience.
“Tech Addiction” Is the New Reefer Madness
By promoting the idea that technology is hijacking our brains and getting all of us addicted to our devices, techno-fearmongers elevate the exception rather than the rule.Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, introduced the Social Media Addiction Reduction...
Love is Measured By the Benefit of the Doubt: The Secret to True Kindness
Babies. They’re such jerks, aren’t they? They wake you up in the middle of the night. They make huge messes for you to clean up. And let’s not forget to mention the inevitable diaper blowouts that happen at all the wrong times. Who do they think they are? Of course,...
An Illustrated Guide to the 4 Types of Liars
There are various ways of classifying lies: by their consequences, by the importance of their subject matters, by the speakers’ motives, and by the nature or context of the utterance. Perhaps the most useful way to classify lies is by the people who tell them: the...
Why You Might Need a Humor Audit: the Benefits of Laughter
Meet Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas, authors of Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life. Dr. Jennifer Aaker teaches about human-centered AI, designing for VR/AR, and the power of story at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where...
Hypocrites: How to Survive in a World that’s Full of Them
What is a Hypocrite?hyp-o-crite /ˈhipəˌkrit/ noun a person who claims to have moral standards to which that person’s own behavior fails to conform.What is an Example of Being a Hypocrite?I once worked with a person we’ll call “Dick.” Dick always told me he’d get...
How to Finally Find the Motivation You’ve Been Missing
Photo by luca pizzarotti on UnsplashNir’s Note: This guest post was written by Cheryl MaguireThe laundry hamper was overflowing with dirty clothes. Lacking the motivation to throw it into the wash, I pushed the clothes down deeper into the bin so I could fit more...
Ashley Stahl: Former National Security Expert Helps Us Get Unstuck
Ashley Stahl is a counter-terrorism professional turned career coach, speaker, and, most recently, author of You Turn, a book about getting unstuck, discovering your career direction, and designing your dream job. Through her two viral TEDx talks speeches (here and...
David Burkus: The One Thing Remote Leaders Need to Know
David Burkus is a speaker, business thought-leader, professor, and best-selling author. His TedX talk, "Why You Should Know How Much your Coworkers Get Paid" has been viewed over 2 million times. He teaches courses on organizational behavior, creativity and...
Hindsight Bias: Why You Make Terrible Life Choices
Nir's Note: Hindsight bias is only one of many cognitive biases—discover other reasons you make terrible life choices like confirmation bias, distinction bias, extrinsic motivation, fundamental attribution error, hyperbolic discounting, self-serving bias, and peak end...
How to Turn Off Harmful Stress Like a Switch
By Nir Eyal and Todd SnyderLet’s play a game of “would you rather.” Would you rather speak in front of 500 people for an hour or be stuck in an elevator with your ex? Would you rather get a cavity drilled or be forced to take a four-hour Zumba class? Would you rather...
Review of The Social Dilemma: No, Social Media Is Not “Hijacking” Your Brain
Over the past few weeks, people have asked me for my review of the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma. It’s no surprise. One of the film’s central themes is that social media is like an addictive drug, and I wrote the book on habit-forming technologies: Hooked:...
This is How the Media is Misleading You on “Technology Addiction”
Nir’s Note: This guest post is by Siri Helle, a clinical psychologist living in Sweden.Which of the following is true? Screen time is the leading cause of anxiety and depression amongst teenagers Studies have found that screen time shrinks people’s attention span to...
Be a Schedule Builder, Not a To-Do List Maker
Imagine you bought a new phone, but at the end of each day, every day, the operating system crashed. Would you keep using the faulty phone? Of course not. You’d take it back to the store, complain, and get a new one. And yet, many people run their entire lives on a...
Handling Life Transitions: Interview with Bruce Feiler
Recently I had the opportunity to sit down for a Q&A with Bruce Feiler, a Ted Talk veteran and seven-time bestselling author, who most recently wrote Life is in the Transitions, a guidebook for navigating the times when our lives pivot dramatically. You can find...
Indistractable Schedule Maker Tool
Below is a free schedule maker template (it’s a Google sheet available here) to create your own timeboxed weekly calendar. After you open it, click on the blue “Use Template” button to create your own copy—it will show up in your Google account at drive.google.com. To...
Screen Time for Kids: Give Them What They Need
Society’s fear of technology destroying our children's future has reached a fever pitch and many parents have resorted to extreme measures. A quick search on YouTube reveals thousands of videos of parents storming into their kids’ rooms, unplugging the computers or...
Changing Habits: Interview with Dr. Amy Bucher, a Behavior Change Designer
Nir’s note: I recently caught up with Dr. Amy Bucher, the author of Engaged, a compelling guidebook on designing products and services that change people’s lives. She talks about behavioral design, the science of crafting products and services in such a way as to...
From Friday Forward to Monday Motivation: Q&A with Robert Glazer
Many of us start our Mondays wondering where our motivation will come from, and for some, whether we’ve even chosen the right career. Reference the (mostly) uplifting Twitter hashtag #MondayMotivation. A recurring theme in my articles is the importance of aligning...
Email Management: How to Hack Back and Cure Inbox Insanity
Email is the scourge of the modern workplace. Here are four rules that can help keep it in check.Email is the curse of the modern worker. Some basic math reveals just how big the problem is. The average office-dwelling professional receives a hundred messages per day....
The Surprising Benefits of Unconditional Positive Regard
In 1967, a catchy tune by The Beatles, “All You Need is Love,” became the anthem for the Summer of Love. The Flower Power culture embraced the song and its message, “love is all you need.” If someone had asked humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers what the song meant,...
How to Raise Distraction-Free Kids
Nir's Note: This interview with my good friends Vanessa Van Edwards first appeared on her blog, Science of People. She did such a great job summarizing our interview that I wanted to share it with my readers as well. Check out Vanessa's site and let me know what you...
How to Get the Most Out of Your Calendar
These Two Questions Will Completely Change the Way You Use Your Calendar: It’s all about reflecting and refining.It doesn’t so much matter what you do with your time; rather, success is measured by whether you did what you planned to do. It’s fine to watch a video,...
Extrinsic Motivation: Why You Make Terrible Life Choices
Nir's Note: Extrinsic motivation is one of many cognitive biases. Discover other reasons you make terrible life choices like confirmation bias, hyperbolic discounting, distinction bias, fundamental attribution error, hindsight bias, self-serving bias, and peak end...
Don’t Follow Your Gut (and What to Do Instead)
How should we make decisions in life? Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, a behavioral economist and cognitive neuroscientist, says that whatever you do, Never Go With Your Gut. It’s such bold advice that Dr. Tsipursky decided to make it the title of his latest book. In this...
Why You Don’t Have to Be a Rocket Scientist to Think Like One
If you looked up the word “polymath” in the dictionary, you may see a picture of Ozan Varol. He teaches at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon and has written a widely cited book on comparative politics. Most surprisingly, however, he was part of the NASA...
Why We Should All Be Wearing (and Making) Face Masks Right Now
Everyone should be wearing a face mask now, whether they are sick or healthy. We can make our own masks to ensure we're not taking them away from health care workers. In several Asian countries that are successfully lowering the number of infections from Covid-19,...
[Survival Tips] Homeschooling During Coronavirus Closings
Due to the coronavirus outbreak, some 850 million children are suddenly learning at home instead of in traditional classrooms. My family has had practice homeschooling for the past five years, so I thought it would be helpful to share some tips and tactics to help get...
Why You’re Not Good at Changing Minds (and What You Can Do About It)
Dr. Jonah Berger is a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania where he studies how products, ideas, and behaviors catch on. He’s written two bestsellers, Contagious and Invisible Influence, and his newest book, The Catalyst,...
This is How to be Less Distracted By Having Fun in Tedious Tasks
Want to be Less Distracted? Try This: Find the Fun in Tedious TasksFrom comic books and radio programs to TV shows and Atari games, the world has always been full of things that distract us. Today, most of us blame our phones or, more specifically, social media, Words...
“Addicted” to Technology? Why You Need To Turn The Tables And Hack Back!
Opinion: Telling ourselves that devices and platforms “hijack” our brains plays right into Big Tech’s hands.Does repeating a falsehood make it true? It seems so, at least when it comes to the myth that technology is addicting us all. While a reassessment of the role...
What You Need to Know When Visualizing Your Goals
Nir’s Note: This guest post is written by Dr. Todd Snyder. Dr. Snyder is a Psychologist and Productivity Coach at ToddSnyderCoaching.comThe world is full of self-help myths and half-truths. One bit of folk psychology that won’t seem to die is the idea that we can...
This is What Most People Get Wrong About Willpower
You come home after a long day of work and you immediately curl yourself up on the couch and binge the latest Netflix craze for hours, while you scroll and scroll through your social media feeds and snack on potato chips even though you're "on a diet." You look around...
Is Tech Ruining Kids? How to Safely Manage Screen Time
We have to help our children manage screen time — not outlaw itOur fears about what technology and smartphones are doing to our kids has reached a fever pitch. Articles with headlines like “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” and “The Risk Of Teen Depression And...
5 Ways to Distraction-Train Your Mind
Recently, the BBC asked me to provide a few tips for how to distraction-train our minds to manage distraction. Notice the phrasing. It’s not about how to eliminate distractions from your phone or your computer, but rather it’s about us. To regain control over our...
Here Is How to Practice Stillness and Increase Focus
Ryan Holiday is the author of ten books which have sold over 2 million copies. His books, including The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego Is the Enemy, The Daily Stoic, and Conspiracy have been translated into thirty languages. In this interview, Ryan discusses his latest...
This is How to Repair a Toxic Work Culture
When Harvard’s Leslie Perlow began to study The Boston Consulting Group, she was well aware of the firm’s round-the-clock reputation. After conducting interviews with BCG’s staff, Perlow found that this reputation was coming at a major cost. Employees were leaving the...
How to (Finally) Put an End to Pointless Arguments
Count me as a Buster Benson fan. His 2016 Cognitive bias cheat sheet is legendary among behavioral designers. I have a framed print out of his codex in my home and I’ve enjoyed his writing on various topics for years. He has extensive experience building products that...
Progressive Extremism: How To Be A Better You
I had just finished giving a speech on building habits when a woman in the audience exclaimed, “You teach how to create habits, but that’s not my problem. I’m fat!” The frustration in her voice echoed throughout the room. “My problem is stopping bad habits. That’s why...
The Most Important Skill of the Future is Being ‘Indistractable’
How the difference between traction and distraction could transform your productivityI know how distractions work from the inside. For over a decade, I’ve helped tech companies build products to keep you clicking. In fact, I wrote the book about it in 2014: Hooked:...
How To Disarm Internal Triggers and Improve Focus
Use this 4-step method to handle unwanted thoughts that can derail your focusWhile we can’t control the feelings and thoughts that pop into our heads, we can control what we do with them. Research of smoking cessation programs performed by Dr. Jonathan Bricker, of the...
