How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds

what product designers do to your mind. They play your psychological vulnerabilities (consciously and unconsciously) against you in the race to grab your attention. I want to show you how they do it....
The “most empowering” menu is different than the menu that has the most choices... When we wake up in the morning and turn our phone over to see a list of notifications — it frames the experience of “waking up in the morning” around a menu of “all the things I’ve missed since yesterday.”...By shaping the menus we pick from, technology hijacks the way we perceive our choices and replaces them new ones...
One major reason why is the #1 psychological ingredient in slot machines: intermittent variable rewards... several billion people have a slot machine their pocket... living moment to moment with the fear of missing something isn’t how we’re built to live.
We’re all vulnerable to social approval. The need to belong, to be approved or appreciated by our peers is among the highest human motivations. But now our social approval is in the hands of tech companies.
We are vulnerable to needing to reciprocate others’ gestures. But as with Social Approval, tech companies now manipulate how often we experience it... LinkedIn is the most obvious offender.