Rebel developers are trying to cure our smartphone addiction -- with an app
To understand why it’s so hard to pry yourself free from your phone, Facebook account and Twitter, you need to know about B.F. Skinner’s pigeons.
In the 1950s, Skinner began putting the birds in a box and training them to peck on a piece of plastic whenever they wanted food. Then the Harvard psychology researcher rigged the system so that not every peck would yield a tasty treat. It became random — a reward every three pecks, then five pecks, then two pecks.
The pigeons went crazy and began pecking compulsively for hours on end.
Fast forward six decades. We have become the pigeons pecking at our iPhones, scrolling through news feeds, swiping left/right on Tinder for hours, the uncertainty of what we might find keeping us obsessed by design.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/rebel-developers-are-trying-to-cure-our-smartphone-addiction--with-an-app/2018/06/17/153e2282-6a81-11e8-bea7-c8eb28bc52b1_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f2830e31e321&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1
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