PHANTOM VIBRATION SYNDROME

Bells and buttons

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter. It carries messages from the nerve cells in our brains to every part of our bodies. As explained by Anders Hansen, a Swedish psychiatrist, its role is not to energise us, but to help us choose what to concentrate on. For example, when we’re hungry and we see food, our brain boosts our dopamine levels to encourage us to consume it - and then releases endorphins to increase our pleasure when we do.

Dopamine levels also surge when we learn something new, or when we expect something new to happen. In his book, Skärmhjärnan, Hansen referred to research conducted in 1950 on monkeys. The monkeys were given juice to drink after hearing a bell ring. To the researchers’ surprise, the animals’ brains produced the most dopamine when they heard the bell ring, more than when they drank the juice. 

A similar test conducted with pigeons in 1971 by Michael Zaera reported the same results. When the pigeons pushed a button, they were given food. But they pushed the button more often when the chance of receiving food was only 50-70%. They pushed it less when the chance of success was 100%. (Under 10%, they lost interest completely). 

Uncertain outcomes

Anders Hansen says that the human brain works in the same way; we’re biased towards uncertain outcomes. Or to put it another way, as Anna Lembke writes in her book Dopamine Nation, the role of dopamine is not to offer pleasure with a reward, but to motivate us to look for that reward. 

It’s an aspect of human nature that cell phone and social media companies fully understand, says Hansen. He goes on to note that they’ve designed the technologies they offer accordingly. It’s an observation backed up Adam Alter, in his book, Irresistible, in which he recounts the confession of Greg Hochmuth, one of Instagram's founding engineers. Hochmuth said he came to realize he was building an engine for addiction – that he was constructing a social media service which would make its users obsess about clicking on a never-ending stream of hashtags. 

Addiction or Flow?

What does such addiction consist of? Alter offers six key ingredients. 

1.     Compelling goals that are just beyond reach.

2.     Irresistible and unpredictable positive feedback.

3.     A sense of incremental progress and improvement.

4.     Tasks that become slowly more difficult over time.

5.     Unresolved tensions that demand resolutions.

6.     Strong social connections.

But as I look at this list, I can’t help thinking of what Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi called ‘Flow’. Flow is the state of mind experienced by individuals concentrating effortlessly on a task. (Please see Creative thinking on FLOW https://www.foodforcreative.com/creative-thinking/flow/) And I wonder at what point being totally absorbed in a task crosses over into addictive behaviour. I think it’s an essential question for creatives.

Essential for one reason. When we design a product or service, do we not want it to offer the best possible experience – easy to use, pleasurable – rather than something that becomes addictive. Because if it’s addictive, sooner or later that experience will become less a pleasure than a torment, one the user won’t want to, or be able to, escape from. And that’s not a positive result.

The challenge for creatives

I’d like to conclude this article with a suggestion Adam Alter makes in the epilogue of his book. He writes that we shouldn’t abandon life-enriching technology because it might create behavioural addiction. Instead, he says, ‘… with careful engineering, [it doesn’t] need to be addictive. It's possible to create a product or experience that is indispensable but not addictive'.

I think it pinpoints perfectly the responsibility we all hold as designers.