I just counted, there are about 75 apps on my iPhone. I regularly use only about 25. Most of the 25, are the standard apps like mail, phone, contacts, calendar, Maps, Safari, and News.  Others I use regularly are Amazon Music, Fitbit, Gmail, Facebook, Weather Bug, Toy Blast, etc. There are about 25 others I use only once in a while such as Amazon Alexa, LinkedIn, etc.

I have a note organization app (Evernote) that I thought would be useful for my class, but I have never used it. A paperclip on the 15 pages of notes seems to work just fine.  However, several of my fellow students use Evernote so I don’t delete it, thinking I might learn to use it sometime.

I have plenty of room on my phone for more apps so there is little consequence for having some apps that I do not use.  In my secret Paul world (imagination), I want to be one of the cool tech people who use cool apps for like everything.  In my real world, that seems like it would be lots of work.

I read and hear there are several life-changing apps I should use. Unfortunately, I do not take the time to be better at the apps I have already, let alone search out the “cool” apps and learn to use them. Clearly, I have to come up with some clever excuse for my laziness.

Contrary to the evidence showing I am a below average user of tech, I probably check my phone over 50 times a day. I check my phone at odd times: On a short elevator ride. In the middle of writing a sentence. A couple minutes after I just checked it. It is fairly common for me to miss portions of a TV show because my device has my attention. Linda often asks me to put the device away.

The truth is I spend more time than I probably should on apps like these: Slotomania, Facebook, WeatherBug, Toy Blast, TriPeaks, Spider, Caesars Slots and the like.  Not that I spend hours in each of them but I spend more time, more often, than I intend to spend in them.

They are, as a group, the free apps which show me advertisements rather than charge me a fee.  These types of apps use all sorts of methods to maximize my advertising views, which is how they make their money on an app they give me for free.

We exchange our time viewing ads for the “free” entertainment provided by the apps. The apps that get us to view more ads are more successful than others. Sometimes we buy what they advertise. It is not sneaky or under-handed. Facebook has to have some revenue to pay their 25,000 plus employees.

Their goal is to have you spend more time viewing ads.  My problem is their methods to increase the time I spend in their apps actually works.  In my mind, I am going to play Slotomania for like ten minutes and two hours later the news comes on and I squeeze in three more games which turn into five.

It is a weird dichotomy, I probably check and use a device too often.  However, I also do not use the device as well and often as I want to.

Our devices are powerful and useful tools. They can also be a waste of time. They can both help us connect and prevent us from having better connections.  It is easy to look up great information on a device. It is also easy for the device to lie to us.  A device can make us feel part of a community of friends.  It can also make us feel part of a group who use fake names to obscure their real identities.

The secret sauce the programmers use to get us to spend more time on their apps is not as diabolical as some would let you believe.  In addition, there is nothing wrong with spending hours playing Slotomania or interacting with any other app if that is how you want to spend your time. The problem is not that I play the game, it is that I play the game far more than I really want to.

We all make choices about how we want to spend our time. We read books, watch TV, play with the kids, walk in the park, take classes, make dinner, get ready to go to work, you get the idea. Think for a minute about what motivated you to spend your time as you do.

The secret sauce that makes us spend more time in an app or doing almost any other activity is called operant conditioning:  a combination of positive/negative reinforcement and positive/negative punishment generally dictates our behavior.  The wait staff who just took your order has learned to be nice and smile because, in general, they get a better tip if you think they like you.  It is not rocket science or a diabolical plot to overtake the world. It is positive and negative reinforcement and positive and negative punishment avoidance.

The weather app encourages us to check frequently just in case the weather forecast changes.  It encourages us to go from one screen to another to give us the full weather picture.  Not coincidently, each page we check, shows us another ad.  By design, the app gets us to view more ads. In exchange, we are able to intelligently discuss the weather with the next person who asks what we think of the weather.

So there I am checking the weather app far more often than any rational person needs to. I check the weather like ten times a day. I check Facebook like 10 times a day.  I check for texts, the news feed, my emails, and it adds up.  My games give me free bonuses spaced periodically through the day so I need to check them also. The bottom line is that I check my phone over 50 times a day and spend way more time on a silly game than I want to.

Maybe how often I check my device is not the relevant question. Maybe a better question is: Am I spending my time as I want to spend it?  Once we decide how we want to spend our time, then we can decide if our device is best used to that end. Devices are powerful tools, how will we use that power is the real question.

 

What we perceive often depends on how close we look.
Scaleandperception.com