participate, so these till archiving, everyone ever even tries to do something, anything that they can. all right, journalist sima, so bad. thank you for your analysis on the start thinking. coming up next. why most apps on your smartphone designed to be addicted? that's in our tech magazine shift. i'm told me a logical and i'll be back with a use update at the top of the out with i have been the fact that i have been beaten. i have been sick

a rated because we've tried to to chaudry of face mafia all over the world. environmentalists are in danger. the enemy, roofless corporations corrupted government agencies and criminal cartels. with a design and when it's targeted, environmentalists in danger starts october 29th on d. w ever wake up at 3 a. m. and the 1st thing you do is reach for your phone a quick scroll through your latest messages, and then you check snapshot, your instagram, fade take talk. i used to be addicted to instagram so much though that i actually had to delete the app altogether. these apps are meant to be addictive, the tricks develop is used and how you can avoid getting hooked. that's our topic

today on shift. ah, so how do develop is gauge the success of their apps? well, it's all about the retention rate, the percentage of users who continue using the app within a given time. in other words, the amount of users staying glued to those screens. the goal of these developers, they want us to spend as much time as possible on their app. the biggest, the engine for engagement and habit forming products is always a variable reward. so a variable role a study by be a skinner, the father operant conditioning. and he found that when a reward is given on and a variable schedule of reinforcement, this increases the action the desired behavior. so in all sorts of things that we find engaging, you will find a variable ward at developers want to know as much about us as possible. many apps collect our data and create incredibly accurate user profiles. these are then

turned into profit through targeted advertising. getting uses hooked is not only a strategy used by social media apps like instagram and tick. tock is also used by shopping apps like the chinese clothing retailer sheehan. earlier in 2022. sheehan was estimated to be worth about $100000000000.00 us dollars more than the valuation of zora and hate m combined company secret to success. using our data for clever marketing. they have a blended business model which is only e commerce, but also social network. honestly, they also have a pretty robust operations, physical operations. so this preschoolers, social media data, data operations data, it's all orchestrated and combined is gives them yes. the clothing retailer sheehan harnesses user data to tailor the perfect marketing strategy. it has created an entire ecosystem around its products. the app is a hybrid platform of sales and social media. and one tab,

you can browse through items and in another you can watch influencers, modeling the look. you can of course comment or like, or simply buy the product with a tab of a button. they're getting more information about your preferences as opposed to just saying, hey, do you like this? sure, if you like that, sure you're commenting or liking or watching a video where somebody is using one of their items and that makes the product better with use. so called p opinion leaders, booster brands value, katie perry, little ness acts, and rita, or just a few of the celebrities who have collaborated with she in the perhaps even more important is the army of micro influencers. she works with some are awarded for their tick tock, post with free clothing. others are commission for the clicks on their post that turn into sales on she and website. 2 it's easy to get drawn in by these celebrities and influences and as uses we reveal exactly what we luck with the help of smart data analysis. she can identify trends at lightening

speed and produce clothing quickly and cheaply. if any given autumn goes borrow, it can then be reproduced, an al data helps feed this cycle. she and uses a variety of tools to find online fashion tracks. the aim is to identify our desires and capitalize on them, compelling us to spend more time on the app. she in isn't only collecting our data, it's cross linking it to they are pretty efficient in data triangulation, which is combining data from different sources. they have basically more relevant data than 0 or any other. that's a normal fast fashion brand. by running such data through smart algorithms, she and tries to predict what items might interest customers in the future. precisely how such analysis works remains she ins well guarded secret. tick tock, instagram and youtube also use algorithms to show users. videos they made light,

tick, tock, especially excels. at this, the app uses a i to scan and identify certain elements and videos and play them for users with similar viewing habits on tick tock. if it's possible for anyone to get their 15 minutes of fame, with a popular video on instagram, going viral depends more on craters, reach and how their content has performed in the past. with a steady stream of new and attention grabbing content, it's so easy to just get caught up in an endless scroll through tick tock, and also develop his art total experts, a playing without sense of foam of all fear of missing out. they just use pretty standard, so called behavioral design methods. it's over use may cause people being cooked into so called infinite loops. so pretty clever notifications which if you dont open it may cause the syndrome ok here are missing out. there is this limits,

this behavioral design when it starts to be harmful and i guess she is an extreme ups lexianne turn your visit into a kind of game and one which you don't always win from a psychology standpoint. the she and app really leverage is what's called a variable rewards or intermittent reinforcement. and this is the center of what i call the hope model. much like you go to a casino and there's this, the excitement of gambling because there's uncertainty around what you might when the fun of watching a sports match, right? you don't know where the ball is going to go next. what team is going to score? there's a very similar mechanic in an app like she in or social media for that example that scrolling of searching and searching and scrolling is amplified and she and, and now brian totally falls for it. there are various situations to which dopamine is released in our brain. for instance, when we eat exercise or receive a present, this neurotransmitter activate feeling of happiness and the rewards center of our brain. motivating us to repeat the same behaviors. there's kind of

a popular perception in the media that doesn't mean as like cocaine, that it gets you to do things against your will, and that's totally accurate. that domain reinforces learning. it reinforce lease mileage shifts between the neurons in your brain to make those connections stronger . that neurons that fire together wired together. and so dopamine is like the sealant for the glue around these connections. ab developers take advantage of the motivating effect of dopamine. they keep us coming back with virtual trophies, bonus points, and progress notifications. the audio book service audible, for instance, rewards members with badges and vouchers for extended listening. our brain learns that listening for longer is good. the strategy here is gamification. gamification means to use game like mechanics and non gaming environments, points, badges,

leader boards typically, ah, language learning apps like this to and do only go also use such mechanisms. progress bars show how far we're advancing in our lessons. this motivates us and even partial success is released dopamine in our brain. hardy congratulations from the app mix, as even happier, as does moving up in the ranking. is it a bit manipulative? yes. but is it bad, per se? well, that depends. of course products are designed to be engaging. that is their very purpose. so if a, an app can't get you to go exercise. if it can't get you to learn a language, if it can't make you more productive at work, that company's going to go out of business that the whole point of these type of products. so gamification elements help motivate us. for instance, to learn that this can become problematic when money enters the picture. the practice of using gamification to get users hoped on an app and then start charging the money is fairly common. in the free version of dual lingo, only

a limited number of mistakes are allowed before you have to restart the lesson. extra attempts can be made in exchange for payment in the paid version. there's no limit to how many mistakes you can make. many fitness apps like strosver or adi, thus running only on mark group challenges and trophies in the full versions she and also uses game elements to keep us on the platform for longer users get points for logging in daily and reviewing products and points can be exchanged for discounts. now, when there are products and services that might take more or something more valuable, so it's not just your time and attention but your money, then we have special conditions, right? then we need special restraints to make sure that people are making decisions that they know don't low regret later on, on average, people spend about 3 hours a day on their phones. of course, that number varies greatly depending on how old you are and where you're from. and

we check our phones $58.00 times a day, and that's just an average. the problem isn't solely how much time we're spending on apps. it's also how frequently we're using them. studies show that every single interruption hampers our productivity. so reaching out for potential means we'll likely have to put down our phones to prevent apps from taking over our lives. it's crucial to set boundaries to save us from our so need to prevent distraction with packs a packet. when you make a pre commitment to do what you're say, you're going to do. so if you say ok, i'm going to use a twitter for 30 minutes and i have a alarm clock that goes off. and if it go, if i'm still using after x, y, z, i have to pay a penalty, or i'm going to have a friend and force it, or whatever the case might be. all kinds of ways that you can use these packs to make sure you do what it is you say you're going to do with your time. you can start out by analyzing your own behavior functions such as screen time on i phones

and digital well being on android review, how much of your time each app consumes. that will help you determine which apps you should take. a break from. instagram has a feature reminding users to take breaks to get some fresh air or to tassel a. to do. there are also apps designed to boost productivity by game a fine your daily life. with super better you team up with others to take on tidying up challenges, for instance, with apps like epic when or how bit occur you can watch your avatar ascend through gaming levels as you tick off to do in your real life. you can exchange gold coin for better equipment for your avatar, but beware, even these apps can't guarantee motivation in the long run. many times gamification doesn't work very well, because it's doing what we call selling chocolate covered broccoli. i'm going to take something. people say they want, they say they want to eat healthy broccoli, but they don't really want to. so i'm going to take chocolate and i'm going to put

on top of the broccoli, and now i'm going to serve you now. will you eat it? will know nobody wants to cover broccoli. it's gross. no. oh, it's important to decide what you want out of life and set intentions. because with an inner sense of purpose, even the most addictive apps will be powerless against you. one more tip to help save you from addictive apps, at least at night time, instead of your phone, try using a classic alarm clock that way you can banish your phone from your bedroom, resulting hopefully in bed asleep, better concentration and more productivity. what tips do you have against addictive apps right in and let us know that's all for today. see you next time. ah ah.

ah, a city full of surprises? group of thought yes. would be told in the middle of the german state of north wind, west valia. with plenty of major history. you can even touch and play those to enjoy so many cool places to discover chicken. be the next on d w. the hotel gun, the best rum and the best to god cuba and self with food shortages, inflation, isolation back to cuba. fidel castro's socialism has failed,

and cubans stuck without hope. you've us fading revolution. 30 minutes on d w. what secrets lie behind these walls discover new adventures in 360 degrees and explore fascinating world heritage sites with b w world heritage is 360. get the app now ah ah ah ah. with.