每日跟讀#734: Addicted to Screens? That’s Really a You Problem

Nir Eyal does not for a second regret writing Silicon Valley’s tech engagement how-to, “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products,” even as he now has a new book out on how to free ourselves of that same addiction.

儘管如今又寫了關於如何讓自己擺脫同樣癮症的新書，但尼爾．艾歐對於寫過矽谷科技參與入門指南《鉤癮效應：創造習慣新商機》毫不後悔。

In his original manual for building enthralling smartphone apps, Eyal laid out the tricks “to subtly encourage customer behavior” and “bring users back again and again.” He toured tech companies speaking about the Hook Model, his four-step plan to grab and keep people with enticements like variable rewards, or pleasures that come at unpredictable intervals.

在當初有關如何開發吸引人的智慧手機應用程序的手冊中，艾歐提出了「巧妙鼓勵客戶行為」和「反覆將使用者帶回來」的技巧。他親赴一些科技公司講述他的「鉤癮模型」，一個藉由變動獎勵或不定時來到的快樂等誘惑物，吸引跟留住人們的四步驟計畫。

Silicon Valley’s technorati hailed “Hooked.” Dave McClure, the founder of 500 Startups, a prolific incubator, called it “an essential crib sheet for any startup looking to understand user psychology.”

矽谷的部落格搜尋引擎Technorati讚揚了《鉤癮》一書，多產孵化器—500 Startups公司創辦人戴夫．麥克盧爾稱其為「任何想了解用戶心理的新創企業必備的小抄」。

Now in the latter days of 2019, Eyal has a new bestseller. This one is called “Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life.”

現在來到2019年下半年，艾歐有了新的暢銷書。這本書名叫《不容分心：如何控制注意力和選擇生活》（暫譯）。

If “Hooked” was a how-to, this is a how-to-undo.

《鉤癮》若是引人上癮的入門指南，新書就是如何不被鉤癮的入門指南。

Eyal, 41, is not alone in this pivot. Since “Hooked,” whistleblowers like Google’s former in-house ethicist, Tristan Harris, have popularized the idea that phones are unhealthy and addictive. Onetime executives at Facebook and WhatsApp have turned into tech critics. At Stanford University, the researcher B.J. Fogg, who ran the Persuasive Tech Lab, has renamed it the Behavior Design Lab and is now starting to roll out tools to reduce screen time.

41歲的艾歐在此一主軸上並不孤單。自《鉤癮》面世以來，像谷歌的前內部設計倫理學家崔斯坦．哈利斯這樣的吹哨者，已令手機不健康且容易上癮的觀念普及化。臉書和WhatsApp昔日高管已變成科技產品的批判家。在史丹佛大學，負責「說服科技實驗室」的研究人員法格，已將實驗室更名為「行為設計實驗室」，且已開始推出減少使用螢幕時間的工具。

“A movement to be ‘post-digital’ will emerge in 2020,” Fogg wrote last month. “We will start to realize that being chained to your mobile phone is a low-status behavior, similar to smoking.”

法格上月寫道：「2020年將出現『後數位化』運動。我們將開始意識到被手機捆綁是類似吸菸的低地位行為。」

Unlike the other newly wary, though, Eyal does not think tech is the problem. We are.

不過，跟其他新近警惕者不同的是，艾歐認為科技並非問題所在，我們才是。

“We talk about addiction, but when it comes to Candy Crush, really? Facebook? We’re not freebasing Facebook. We’re not injecting Instagram here,” Eyal said one morning over croissants at New York’s Bryant Park. “These are thingrs we can do something about, but we love to think the technology is doing it to us.”

艾歐某天早上在紐約布萊恩公園吃著牛角麵包時說：「我們談到上癮，但以網遊Candy Crush為例，真會上癮嗎？臉書呢？我們不會將臉書如古柯鹼般加熱來吸食。我們也沒在注射Instagram。這些是我們可以操控之物，我們卻喜歡認為這些科技正在操控我們。」

And so in “Indistractable,” which was published last month, Eyal has written a guide to free people from an addiction he argues they never had in the first place. It was all just sloughing off personal responsibility, he figures. So the solution is to reclaim responsibility in myriad small ways.

因此，艾歐在上月出版的《不容分心》一書寫了一份讓人們擺脫癮症的指南，他認為他們從一開始就根本沒有上癮。他認為這全是在擺脫自己的責任。因此，解決方法是以許多小方法重新負起責任。

Source article: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0067/347108/web/