The average person spends a combined total of one entire day per week checking their phone, according to recent research. And that constant connection is not making us feel closer to our loved ones—it’s actually leading to feelings of unhappiness. But if that’s the case, why don’t we all just throw out our phones and delete our social media accounts?
In this video from the PBS science series BrainCraft, creator and host Vanessa Hill explains that our phones—specifically, the apps and the algorithms that guide how we interact with them—tinker with the habit-forming parts of our brain so that we’re triggered to keep coming back to them, and to linger long after a notification has been answered or an interaction has taken place.
Everything from the hypnotic buzzing alerts to the brightly colored notifications are tailored to ensure that we’ll come back to an app or website.
Everything from the hypnotic buzzing alerts to the brightly colored notifications are tailored to ensure that we’ll come back to an app or website, again and again, in order to receive a “mental reward.”
“Facebook and I agree on one thing: we both want me to…
