Nir Eyal writes, consults and teaches about the intersection of psychology, technology and business. 

 

Dubbed "The Prophet of Habit-Forming Technology" by the M.I.T. Technology Review, Nir has founded two tech companies and taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

 

He is the author of the bestselling book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life.

 

As well as his own blog, Nir and Far, Nir has written for The Harvard Business Review, TechCrunch and Psychology Today

In this episode:

(01:16) Nir shares the origin of his interest in behaviour change

(02:09) Similarities in our relationship with food and our relationship with technology

(03:34) Why Nir wrote Hooked and who it was for

(04:14) The problem - then and now

(04:52) How Nir's attitude changed during the writing of the book

(05:26) Socrates, Aristotle and the nature of 'Akrasia'

(06:20) If technology isn't the problem, what is?

(07:20) Discarding Freud's 'Pleasure Principle'

(08:49) The role of the 'internal trigger'

(09:16) Traction vs distraction

(11:15) What do all distractions, overuse and addictions have in common?

(12:20) Creating an 'indistractable' workplace

(14:06) How is technology use affecting our mental health?

(19:11) Ways to manage internal triggers

(20:26) How to make time for 'traction'

(22:11) Hacking back the external triggers

(23:42) Preventing distraction using pacts

(27:01) Nir's Little Challenge