tl;dw it’s a good idea to turn off auto play on KZfaq, limit notifications to what you really care about, and even bundle apps that are not essential tools (like maps or messages) and move them to the second page of your phone screen. I installed an app called Moment and it was surprising - I knew I spent a good amount of time on my phone, but some days I was spending 4 hours on apps that aren’t really necessary. That’s a LOT of my attention. So, if good design nudges your behaviour every single day - in the case of technology, should companies tell you what those design tricks are? Should design be more ethical? Or is it your responsibility to navigate?

Pavlov is at a bar, drinking a beer and he hears someone's phone go off. He suddenly gets up and says "Oh, crap, I forgot to feed the dog!"

Attention Wars is a great way of phrasing it. This is an important discussion to have in society. What do you think is our role as content creators in this war of attention? We fight for clicks and watch time and retention rates as well after all.

I actually recently deleted my Snapchat & Facebook. It honestly feels awesome & liberating!

This makes me think about what some of the more addicting video games do to keep you playing. I spent too long playing certain online games growing up. Rewards can give you dopamine release and want you coming back for more. It feels like a need, definitely an addiction in my case. I'd be interested in a video on video game addiction in the future

I'm so glad you're doing some videos on this. Its a really important thing to be telling people. Its important that people know how these things work rather than just being blindly led. I look forward to the next one!

This is the last video I'm watching today.

Is it bad that I'm watching this at 3 AM in the morning because I feel like my mind requires constant stimulus of entertainment because otherwise I feel dead?

the only thing that really keeps me online is damn life itself, gimme anything to focus on but reality and i'll be aboard

I really like these mini series, which are going deeper into subjects, like this and Bad Behaviour: A Field Guide. I hope you get to make more of them in the future

Thank you so much for this series!

I really like this series and the format. I'm sure they take more time, effort and resources to make, but I think you should do more series like this. Also I stopped using Facebook news feed or personal updates a while ago, but getting rid of it completely would mean disconnecting from certain friends and colleagues completely, so I won't delete. KZfaq recommendations suck me in at times, so my goal is to only watch things intentionally and less browsing. It's a work in progress

just great information from credible sources, thank you so much for spreading it to the masses! quick sub.

Excellent topic, just subscribed!

The door part finished me 😂. I am subscribering 😇

I really appreciate videos like this that encourage mindfulness with technology. I work with social media promotion so I’m unfortunately a bit trapped by notifications, however, I have my phone set to ‘do not disturb’ from 9pm to 8am. This allows me to self direct my consumption without notifications ‘pushing’ me to other platforms. Also, Bluetooth headphones allow me to multitask while watching videos. This means I can consume videos, podcasts and audiobooks while still packing the dishwasher and cooking. This leads to a greater sense of accomplishment while still being educated or entertained. Thank you for this new channel. I will be subscribing and adding notifications, not so I can be ‘persuaded’, but mindful of when I can choose to be informed by your content.

I love that your content is almost always based on real researchs .. thank you very much ❤

Your videos and this series are just fabulous. Thanks for helping us to understand the social media strategies and specially Facebook :) 👏😀😀

great series, looking forward to next episode

I am happy I've been notified about this video.

This series is so fantastic and important!

No words to appreciate you, now this is mind blowing 🙂 and yes I subscribed !

Brilliant! Just what I needed. I need my attention somewhere else.

I think the best way to deal with persuasive design is to be mindful and shop/choose which technologies we want to allow into our personal lives. Similar to the GPS analogy, its best to pick the things that are taking you where you want to go. Instagram for example is an excellent place to find great artists, and youtube is a great place to find some amazing informative channels (like BrainCraft). I think as long as we remain cognizant of the persuasive designs it all works out well. Also not all persuasive design is bad. While sites like KZfaq and Google want to maximise your time on them, they also want to deliver the value you are seeking. If used came to KZfaq to look for this series and they couldn't find it, they'd get mad and leave. On the same note after watching episode the site will recommend similar content (which from my end looks like TED talks and other educational channels) which, if you are being mindful, you can choose to watch or just hop off. The way I see this whole design aspect is as a necessary evil. I do hope the field of HCI looks further into design to help for a positive experience for more people rather than the current, often harmful, attention grabbing style.

Great video, great message!

This was an excellent video. Well done Vanessa!

Awesome video. I'm gladly giving you my attention.

5:42 KZfaq notified me of a new video here and it took me a while to realize it wasn’t part of the video.

"Because if we're just left to our own devices..." Hah, great pun.

Wow. Totally watching the next 4 parts, Nessy. What you said at the end about staring at our screens - that's me. If none of my friends are on discord, I will sit around for quite a while in the hope that a friend will come on to interact with. Can see the patterns you're talking about if I analyse my habits when I get home: - Drape jacket over kitchen chair, - Walk into computer room, Take shoes and socks off, Sit at computer, - Open Chrome, type "fa" in address bar to bring up Facebook, go through new Facebook notifications, go through Facebook wall, go into KZfaq, check KZfaq subscriptions for new videos of interest, watch new videos of interest/no new videos of interest then maybe something in Facebook will occupy my attention- bugger I was in Facebook 2 minutes ago when nothing was there.... -maybe I can check if I have any cool emails there... well I received one response to something I was waiting on and deleted some spam... now what?... maybe there's something good to watch on KZfaq... check subscriptions for new vide- I was here less than 2 minutes ago! Ok, Facebook... I've done this... why am I checking Facebook again so soon?? :( :( :(

Great! Thanks for creating this series. In fact, maybe you have some other series in mind for the future. Any chance?

I'm happily giving you my attention xD, at least your content is way better than Facebook's

I'm loving this series

Awesome! Subbed.

Great video quality and content 👌

Personal responsibility certainly but the game isn't balanced, advertisers study for years on how to manipulate us, and we teach none of it to our children, I sure didn't learn anything about it in highschool or before, which leaves us vulnerable to being manipulated.

These videos are great, people really need to hear this, especially teenagers

I love it! Please do more

this is only scratching the surface of the digital age. Keep up the great work

really like the series!

A ding is to...... turn off, there's no way I ever leave that on social media. Only for important things. I don't think I need to delete my social media accounts because I have more control than many people I see around me, but I can do better and use it less still :) enjoyed watching this video.

So that is how tech companies do it and great video BrainCraft :]

Nice way of presentation

Subbed, quality vid

I love the energy

Ending with FindShadow was a cunning psychological trick that I'm happy to say worked marvelously.

Nice talk

honestly sometimes theres literally nothing to watch on youtube but i just keep fucking scrolling and refreshing without any goal

Am I the only one that left social media years ago when I saw that it was negatively affecting my life? I now only use KZfaq on my computer instead of watching TV or Netflix as it seems to be the most benign of the attention grabbers. I have no notifications on my laptop or PC. I also got rid of my smart phone. I have found that online classes are useful ways to have fun instead of playing games and yet I still feel like I have not done enough.

Your smart is absolutely the most stunning thing going on web wide ...and that's a long list of goings on! Thank you. Please never stop making these videos. You are one of the brightest stars among a constellation of lovely and brilliant souls, again, thank you.

Man, i'm addicted to swoopleft.

You've got my attention, tell me more!

KZfaq rabbit hole is very real. Especially when I was younger.

BJ Fogg at 4:19? What a name!!!

I turned off notifications for social media and emails a while ago and it helps. However when I do get around to looking (too often!) I still end up falling down the thumb scroll rabbit hole :(

First thing I do when I install an app is stop notifications and that's why I haven't pressed any bell icons on KZfaq channels :P

what's this app at 02:20 showing how long and often I use my phone and apps?

I had this in the background while doing other stuff, promptly noticed the irony and I'll continue with the next episode later

Long comment ahead. TL;DR I've got an addiction issue on my hands. This series is so timely. I was just talking to a friend of mine last night about this. I kicked the FB habit a while ago, after I become incredibly concerned about their less-than-ethical privacy policies. Twitter has become a cesspool that I can't tolerate, and I just never got into Instagram. However, I'm completely addicted to KZfaq. There was a comment, on Wheezy Waiter's video about giving up the internet for a month, that was a big a-ha moment for me. The person said they got off social media when they realized it was killing their creativity. I had been trying to figure out why my creative drive is just about gone, and yup, it started to tank when I seriously dived into KZfaq. This is what I do for entertainment, for hours upon hours per day. I passively consume videos instead of actively pursuing things I enjoy. After talking to my friend, I realized this is damaging my self-esteem and pleasure in life. If I want to increase my self-esteem, I need to do esteemable things, and watching KZfaq videos all the time is not esteemable. I have zero sense of accomplishment and pride in doing this. Here's the thing though: The thought of limiting my time here feels painful. That's how I know I'm addicted right now. I mean, when KZfaq went down a couple of weeks ago, I felt, well, lost. I have a large number of possibilities for things I can do for entertainment, and none of them sounded good. Not drawing, not painting, not reading, not even Netflix. That's not right. What's worse is that even knowing all of this, I don't really want to stop. I don't even have auto-play on, but dang, that Recommended algorithm knows exactly what I'm interested in. There's about 5 videos right now in the sidebar that I want to watch. I know that I'm going to have to force myself to get off of here. I also know it's going to feel hard, while I get those neural pathways recalibrated. And I pretty much hate that I'm going to have to work at it. Passive consumption is just so easy. The designers absolutely knew what they were doing here.

I'm surprised it didn't work on me. Not on facebook, kind of have never been (had it, barely visited, eventually deleted). It makes me wonder how people can even be functional while having such things, I'm barely functional and I don't even have e-mail alerts.

I used this video to trick my brain into using the treadmill for 10 minutes

this is why mindful scrolling is important

this was simply amazing ! keep uploading such wonderful content

This may be a funny question to ask but what's that app you mentioned that tracks how often you check your phone? I'm of the opinion that I do so much less often than most but I'd like to see it in proper numbers rather than just my feeling

People who can't live along side technology advancement get selected out; it's great!

I do all of these solutions. Many of my friends are pissed , but i always avoid seeing my phone without reason.

This video deserves 2 billion views.

One day I hope you share that skincare routine I'm sure others are curious lol

I only have/keep facebook because before I had it nobody told me about any events or get-togethers (I think not having social media was one of the main reasons I hardly had any friends through school), and now facebook is the only way I'll ever have contact with my friends. They certainly won't reach out to contact me if i delete it. I'm really bad at asking people for phone numbers as well.

Know what else gives you a real addictive buzz? When you comment on someone's video and then KZfaq tells you that they

Another great video. I still don't understand how people can't put down facebook, twitter etc. I check twitter once or twice a week. Facebook once a day, to contact parts of my family who live far away. Snapchat was deleted within minutes of installing. I found it too annoying to use. My phone is usually on silent. It's a tool for me to use when I want to, not when other people want me. Maybe I'm different in that I want to spend my time doing what I want rather than waiting to see what others are doing. When scrolling through facebook to catch up on family posts, most of it is inane rubbish. I don't care what or where you ate earlier or seeing the same meme for the seventh time today. I want to know that family and friends are okay. I need an app that displays people's status as a red, amber or green icon. Green is doing well, amber is not bad, I might benefit from a chat. Red is person isn't doing well. Then I can see at a glance that people are fine, and the odd occasion the icons change colour I can get in touch. If any of the people I know are drama fiends, I can mark them as such and the app automatically upgrades their icon colour by one. This would give me an at a glance view of the people I care about and a clear indication on who needs my attention without the clutter of memes, posts to save invented people by clicking like or the propagation of bad facts or advice.

I highly recommend changing your default notification sounds to a unique sound. It's very liberating.

That dreadlocks dude looks like a cross between a Simpson and southpark character

That soundfilter at 5:05 was highly unnessecary. For a moment you got me worring that my headphones were done for.

More folks should watch this stuffs. Less misinformation spreading as well.

That donut cup is not terribe! We are not yet ready for its greatness! All hail the donut cup!

This is all very meta, using the methods outlined in persuasive technology to “persuade” us into coming back 4 more times to get the full story. More engagement, more videos to click that like button on and more advertising plugs than in 1 long video

Weird thing, but I have discovered that wearing a smart watch helps with this. When I get a notification I can check it on my watch, and it doesn't pull me into a scroll. I don't have to pick up my phone.

Notifications annoy me. It's an almost OCD response in that anything with a red notification needs to be removed. I always turn off push notifications on apps that allow me to. It's the least helpful feature on smart phones for me.

An honest question, how do you bring up this sort of thing with a family member? I have two members in my extended family that almost constantly need some sort of stimulus, whether from their phone, laptop, or Kindle. It makes them incredibly boring to be around, but I'm not quite sure how to bring it up.

More connected than ever yet its harder by the day to not be lonely. Ive chosen to embrace loneliness and focus on improving myself. Still though it feels like a peice is missing from modern digital life.

Then what’s the alternative then? Not everyone I know and care lives in a 100 mile radius, how I going to know about the new taco place and new music?

I was hoping for 'click the bell icon' joke at the end

What I the app that monitors the amount of time one spends on their phone?

It's surprising to me that it hasn't been mentioned the new tools that Apple and Google provide on the new versions of iOS and Android. You don't need to install any app to know how much time you spend on the phone and in apps, and how many pickups you do during the day, it all comes with the system now! And the best part is that you can limit the system easily, go and limit the time on Facebook, it's super easy and it helps you control your behaviour. I'm really happy that companies like Apple are helping us fight this attention war.

Sometimes you don't really have to delete your accounts, all you need to do is to forget the password. If you were as lucky as me and didn't set up proper password recovery options, your problems slowly drift away.

The only thing I use notifications for is when someone replies int the same comment thread as me. As for watching youtube videos, I just go through my subscriptions page and watch what I want.

I don't blame the Attention Grabbers trying to snag us and draw us in - after all, they need to do this to "grow" (money, views, followers, etc). However, at thd end of the day, it is our choice whether to let them draw us in. Example, I only use Facebook as a way for me to log into games; I don't use it for the social media aspect. If a bell rings to let us know there's a notification, we have the choice to check it or not. Unless one is waiting for some important communication, I would say that most notifications can wait.

This video was pretty interesting, but left me with a couple of questions in regards to Jaron Lanier's statements about Facebook and suicide. When Jaron Lanier says "it increases suicide," 1) to what research is he referring? 2) does he mean "increases suicide" or "increases the risk of suicide?" From my understanding, those two statements are very different, with the former implying that there is research that has demonstrated clear cause and effect and the latter meaning there is a correlation.

0:27 That’s not how you drink from a mug. You have to flip it sideways.

Thank you mother.

It’s crazy because is true. And a Fb whistleblower just came up front talking about this.

See the September 2017 issue of National Geographic. Months of a cocaine addiction clinic therapy did nothing. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation worked according to the article. The article argues addiction is not a matter of morality but a treatable medical condition. A brain must be balanced for personal responsibility (the illusion of free will) to work. Without parts of the brain like the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex putting messages from the striatum into perspective with its rationalizations, a persons actions are more likely to come from more primitive areas of the brain such as the striatum. Medical therapies such as transcranial magnetic stimulation can start to grow back areas of the brain which may have been reduced from the stress of modern society or military combat.

There's actually a movement to move back to dumb phones recently, probably for reasons discussed here.

I did like this video because it shows mechanism behind modern adverts .. same time I didn't like because of constantly visible logos (even not really critical to topic) of Mac book pro or just shape of Iphone. So ... ethical design or lack of responsibility?

Some of us don't _do_ social media...

Wow🎉

Deleted my FB but I'm addicted.

yea im addicted...

Must have weird donut cup!!!