No right turns (Your Undivided Attention Podcast Notes)
This podcast talks about cassinos and the way they're desiged. People who gamble are sucked into the slot machine, the most popular machine, for hours. They feel a weightlessness, they even sometimes forget they're in their body. They Are drawn by it's strong magnetic pull.
What makes them so intreinging? What pulls people in so hard? The design of the machine exploits the way the human brain works. It's hacking our biology, it's hacking us.
When they get into a cassino, it does everything in it's power to lead them along and, most importantly, stop them from thinking or questioning what they are doing. The capets wind around and focus in on the slot machines, they lead you to them using their visual and spacial design. The ceilings are designed to be low enough they give you a cacoon feeling, even the room is designed to avoid distracting you with sound of other people. Then in this chair you sit and only have to lift one finger to give your money away. It leads you along with it's intermitten stimulation, teasing you, taunting you, giving you money then taking it away, some more money, take it away. Naturally the net amount is always negitive. It uses sounds and lights and the promise of winning to suck you in.
"No right turns" applies to carpets because if you have a hard sharp line it breaks you out of that concentration and forces you to start thinking and
This is really not all that unlike social media, video services, and smartphones in general. They are all designed, subtly without you realizing it, to keep you in that flow.
Some examples of this:
- Infinite scroll. Not hitting that "next page" button means they don't stop and think... Should I continue?
- Auto loading Next Episode in Netflix (and every one). Again, the show loads before you can make a concious choice to stop.
- The mysteroius red number.
Design
Anti-patterns
- Lonliness, nobody to question your decisions
- Fast-feedback, you get those dopimine hits really fast. Batched notifications at the end of the day.
- Random-rewards and Ambiguity: Your phone buzzes, who is it? House on fire, or Youtube with new videos.
- Continuity with non-resolution (no end) Slowdown the farther down the list you go. Randomly slower so you can't detect it.
Don't tie the cat to the bacon. Not better notifications settings, just make it less distracting.