How do Silicon Valley tech gurus design a successful app, an app that will hook consumers and then keep them hooked so they keep coming back to the app? Some app designers call this process "captology," or the art of capturing people's attention and making it hard for them to escape. In his book Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Product, Nir Eyal, a game designer and professor at Stanford, explains why applications like Facebook are so effective. A successful app, he writes, creates a "persistent routine" or behavioral loop. The app both triggers a need and provides the momentary solution to it. Eyal writes:
Feelings of boredom, loneliness, frustration, confusion, and indecisiveness often instigate a slight pain or irritation and prompt an almost instantaneous and often mindless action to quell the negative sensation. Gradually, these bonds cement into a habit as users turn to your product when experiencing certain internal triggers.
Possible Preaching Angles: Spiritual bondage; Sin; Temptation; Idol; Idolatry—Is this not a description of sin? We feel a deep need, then we turn to some sinful behavior to meet that need. When we do it often enough it becomes a habit and then we're hooked.
