The tricks and tactics of addiction a persuasive design many tech designers openly admit using insights from behavioral scientists of the early 20th century but the concept of randomly scheduled rules studied in developed by american cycle of just b. F. Skinner in the 1950 s. He created whats become known as the skin of books a simple contraption he used to study pigeons and even raccoons at the start of the process a pigeon is given a food every time it picks the would pick or turns a full circle when the word turnip is as the experiment proceeds the rewards become less frequent they take place at random but by that time the behavior has been established the pigeon keeps pecking or turning not knowing when it might get the reward but in anticipation that are award could become. A boxes with pivotal in demonstrating her. Design had the power to modify behavior and if randomly scheduled rewards work for pigeons why dont you miss. Skinners concept is in fact at the heart of a lot of addictive design from casino machines such as slot machines to social media. Smartphones are unnervingly similar to stop machines think about your Facebook Instagram a painter speeds we all swipe down pause and then wait to see what will appear went back to those randomly scheduled boards again youll swipe could result in a new comment on a photo when you like or a piece of spam will Software Update you dont really know and if that unpredictability that makes it so addictive. Natasha dow should lose a cultural anthropologist who spent more than 15 years studying the algorithms behind this way steve designed just like on a slot machine when youre texting or when you are looking through the news feed you really never know whats coming down the pike you never know when youre going to sort of hit that jackpot so to speak when its coming and how much it will be so the randomness is very important to keep you hooked and i think the fact that were damn bullying money in a casino isnt really that different than what were doing because in both cases what were really gambling is our attention and our time right and across the board were sitting there sort of hoping for some little reward to never knowing when its going to come. In all cases where were sort of sitting alone with the machine theres no natural stopping point i think that the similarities are quite striking we check our phones over 150 times a day just like. Put up its the 1st thing we look at when we wake up the last thing we look at before we go to sleep is like were glued to it and thats. Thats by design we now have like over 2000000000 skinner boxes and peoples pockets we are running the largest experiment like psychological experiment that the world has ever seen by orders of magnitude one out of every 4 human beings on earth has a skinner box which is learning how to uniquely target that. Super fascinating in the abstract but sort of terror when you think about what its doing the research is being done and the evidence is clear that Digital Technology is being designed with the intention to make us attics its not a secret in the Tech Industry that 2 of the biggest tech because bill gates and the late steve jobs admitted they consciously limited the amount of time their children were allowed to engage with the products they helped create. The problem is real but the media can often sensationalize the issue of tech addiction and make it harder for us to understand. Think that the reason people read maybe reach for the metaphor of crack cocaine is because they see that as a sort of high speed hyper intensive form of addiction and you know while i dont use that metaphor myself i do think that within the spectrum of media addictions there are certain ones that are more high potency you could say and those are you know if were going to use the language of addiction they have a higher event frequency think about horse race right you go to the track and youve got to really wait for that event to happen if you are rapidly engaged in an activity such twitter thread. That is more high potency it has a higher event frequency which means each event has an opportunity to draw you in more to reinforce that behavior more so i think we really can apply the language of addiction to these different media i have a ongoing. Frustration which is that whenever. I am still for a 2nd i have this impulse to reach into my pocket and pull out my phone and then i get angry at myself because i say thats thats not right just just enjoy this moment just be be with yourself for a 2nd and then i get angry at myself that my phone has that much power over me right and im angry. That im subject to the design of a technology in such a way that i have difficulty sort of resisting its allure but of course everything about these technologies is built to to to create that impulse to make it feel as though its irresistible its theres such emphasis put on the free choice and being able to be a consumer and you make decisions. In the marketplace about what you want to do because you have free will but at the same time the very people who are promoting that notion of the person as a consumer sovereign are operating and designing their technology with a very different human subjects in mind its somebody who can like a rat or a pigeon or any other animal be incentivized and motivated and hooked and have their attention redirected and thats really interesting to me because it is a kind of return to skinner i think you wouldnt have heard that in the eightys or ninetys that would have even been creeping you to think about someone designing your behavior but now its become accepted that you can be a behavior designer and behavior design was one part of what as they used to do in a previous life however he is now one of a growing number of industry insiders who are taking a more critical stance towards silicon just. Talking to him let me wonder does he regret his pot. And want to be like humble about it if i had invented it it would have been invented i just havent been the right place or the right time to think about the right kind of thing. But yes i do regret it but i do think it talks to like the naive 80 of being like oh heres just a cool feature. And making it and even if its great for the user without thinking about the effects itll happen if you can scale it up 100000000 people or 1000000000 people where this little thing that i went around to like twitter and google and all these other companies go a guy who should adopt this now is wasted quite literally hundreds of millions of human hours. Im sure all of us have had someone say to us stop looking at your phone or why you so we dictate to social media and before i started the series i thought maybe there was something wrong with me i just had no idea how deliberately designed our online experiences and how these design algorithms are made to lessen. Its i asked everyone i spoke to how do we change this can we change how Online Design works regulation cannot be expected to happen on its own within. These corporations right who are profiting from this because there is just too deep of a conflict of interest and so the only viable kind of regulation is going to have to come from the outside we have to have a public conversation about what is actually going on in these products how are they working and once we understand that as a collective what do we want to limit and constrain so if you start with the assumption that people are never going to fully understands the risks of algorithms and the way in which that interacts with the data then we have to think about what else might work in its place and the Data Protection regimes like the general Data Protection regulation are a Great Foundation and one of the ways in which we could really improve upon that is to embrace a trust basis so instead of putting all of the risk on the user the requirements of protecting people would fall on the big company that is using the algorithms thats using the data i think there is going to be a huge shift from just human centered design as we call it in our field is like put the human at the center which is was a big movement to thinking about human protective design we say that the tools that are big. They are so powerful that they cause real damage to us individually for Mental Health to our relationships to our children and to us society toward democracy means to having civil discourse. And that move to human protected doesnt mean. I think its super hopeful because then we can actually have technology which does what it was supposed to the 1st place which is extend our best selves. So if youre concerned about the ways in which data is being collected an algorithm is are being used to affect your life there are 3 things i think you can do one use the tools that are given to you use privacy dashboards use to factor authentication which is really valuable to be more deliberate in critical about the ways in which Companies Companies are asking for your information and the devices that you adopt from the services you participate in understand that companies are trying to tell you things through design and theyre trying to make things easier or harder and think about whether you want things to be easier and one of the costs of making things easier and i understand that companies are trying to get your consent because their entire business depends on it and so think about that as you go forward and finally i think that design and consent and privacy and algorithms need to be a political issue and so if someones running for office ask them what their stance is on algorithmic accountability ask them what their stance is on privacy and Data Collection because if we get better rules about how the data is collected not rhythms are used and we might all be better off were at this Inflection Point where our technology is beginning to make predictions about us that are better than the predictions we make about ourselves and one of the best ways of binoculars and is by learning about ourselves more dislike stop and really ask yourself like before you post something to facebook ranting like why am i doing this like what are my motivations if you sort of like slow down your thought process often ive found that itll be like oh i am pulling this app out because im a little bit bored or everyone else has pulled up their phones and feeling a little socially awkward oh thats curious. Or maybe like im having this experience and i sort of want to show off just a little bit and just like stopping and thinking about like what are my motivations for doing things i found to be a great inoculate. And for for spending my time in ways that i wish i had waited ill just say that i recommend having a general attitude shift where you understand yourself as an organism as a creature that can like any other number of creatures and animals be turned in certain directions have your attention swayed caught captured hooked i find it liberating to recognize all of the forces that are exerting these these different powers on me to turn my attention in one way or another and somehow realizing that helps me to disconnect a lot because it makes me a little bit angry. And i dont feel so bad about myself i feel bad about whats being done to me and then im more able to disconnect. Award winning programming from International Film made because of what driving around looking for drug addicts on the streets of kabul just the arrest sets the stage these men are demanding just because no one hard time giving voice to the voiceless have you failed your mission to protect the civilian population but open your eyes to an alternative view of the world today. On aljazeera. There was a lot of there in this community and that is what i mean look to and believe in the world and to look for to get all the make you want to win this is all men she worked with local women to solve the main problem plaguing their community was not also to problem auction plan had been bought us a priority and led the way in transforming a difficulty into a success so imparting a woman to me is standing economy. Women make change on aljazeera. Driven by outrage and spanning generations the real hinge of demonstrators gathered on the very day a widely criticized repatriation agreement between the governments of bangladesh and me and more was to begin the anger was all too apparent and the fear was palpable if you dont like were so afraid that if they send one of us back to myanmar today tomorrow theyll send back 10 and the day after tomorrow theyll send back 2030 or if we were given citizenship in myanmar then there would be no need to take us back there we would go back on our own we must remember the rancho among the most persecuted minority youth in the world. And how he did in doha the top stories on aljazeera irans foreign minister says there will be all out war if the u. S. Takes military action alone in the bombing of a major Saudi Arabian all facilities yemen says he rebels claimed responsibility for the strikes but washington and riyadh say to iran is to blame iran denies any involvement say mr avi reports from the iranian capital. Drone and missile attacks on Saudi Oil Facilities last week iranian leaders say the only reason the u. S. And saudi arabia are blaming them is because the alternative is too embarrassing that yemens hoopy fighters were capable of carrying out such a destructive military operation. But the saudis say the drones and missiles direction of travel recover debris the capacity of the Technology Used in these attacks all draw a Straight Line back to tehran Foreign Ministers of odds are it has said of the iran coincident is used as an excuse to attack his country iran wont think twice about defending itself he also warned u. S. President donald trump not to listen to his saudi allies who would march to war with iran for their own sake they should pray that they wont get what they seek theyre still paying for a much smaller a human war that they were too arrogant in 4 years ago for those hoping for cooler heads to prevail the rhetoric coming from to iran of widespread and destructive retaliation is worrying and an indication of how far the u. S. And iran have come from the negotiating table. But the reality is irans position is nothing new the promise of a kind of mutually assured destruction of American Assets and allies in the region has been standing policy for years and iranian experts say is keeping irans enemies at bay what is new is how frequent and assertive the message from iranian leaders has become a signal perhaps that there is real concern into iran that some kind of u. S. Aggression may now be closer than ever on a visit to saudi arabia the u. S. Secretary of state described the oil facility attacks as an act of war and promised more economic sanctions on iran and there will be more sanctions. We we have set about a course of action to deny iran the capacity and the wealth so that they can conduct their tears and to prove to prevent that from conducting their terror campaigns and you can see from the events of last week theres still more work to do were going to continue to drive towards that end. If you cannot fail to see the failed policy of giving money to this regime what happened inside the arabia those opposed to the saudi led war in yemen now in its 4th year see the incident very differently the who has dismissed the saudi version of events describing the attack as an example of how their own newly developed weapons can now reach targets far beyond yemens borders and they warned if the Saudi Led Coalition wont stop dropping bombs on yemen then Coalition Countries should be prepared for more of the same leaders here in iran have been quick to remind the world that it was yemens who the fighters that claimed responsibility for the attacks last week on Saudi Oil Infrastructure the who these no doubt consider these attacks not as an act of war by iran as the americans would see it but as retaliation for an ongoing saudi war that was sparked by a saudi led invasion and thats the line being pushed by irans leaders as well. The u. S. Justice department is being accused of playing a key role and with reportedly withholding a whistle blows complaints against president on the trunk the head of the u. S. House Intelligence Committee says intelligence officials were blogs from passing on the complaints to congress u. S. Media are reporting that its related to a phone call between truong and a foreign leader of canadas Prime Minister has apologized again after another 4 siggraph and video emerged of him wearing blackface makeup Justin Trudeau plans to continue his Reelection Campaign and protests are planned around the world is calling on countries to stop whats being called an environmental catastrophe this one was held in Sydney Australia as part of a Global Climate change strike directed at World Leaders gathering in new york for a un Climate Summit and thats up to date stay with us on aljazeera the news continues after all to see hope world. Over the decades millions from the arab world have emigrated some escaped conflict or pressed accuse others moved for economic or family reasons they settled in europe australia the americas and africa but what happened to them afterwards. While born and raised in italy to me abdul qadeer is a jordanian palestinian origin shes also milans 1st muslim female council member. But 1st meet dr now. A pharmacist and businesswoman originally from iraq. She arrived in the netherlands over 2 decades ago. And were only what what. And what he thought to hate and yemen or that he thought just been a horrible minute iraq. Kind of that. She had that her. And that if i with his show that i feel his with the hour. Long that happy assad look and i think that that come with a hut hut of. A lot of head of a common enemy im a. Few months a 2nd box or have him and i kind of hear that your mother is here. In the live in a horrible middle iraq all. A lot of women look none of. Us saw. 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