Five Ways That Technology Can Modify Your Behavior

It might seem far-fetched, but technology has the potential to hijack your behavior – both in the short and long term. Ranging from the seemingly minor occurrences such as push notifications to a reward program, it can gradually nudge you to behave in specific ways at certain times, and do certain actions within certain times.

Technology has the power to keep you hooked, thanks to addictive designs, the data trails you leave behind can be used to do something against you in the future, while algorithms everywhere can filter out the options in front of you and future search results you get. The virtual world does not simply operate in a vacuum – it is choke-full of features, all which influence you to adopt specific beliefs, stare at the screen for a longer time or buy products.

While these do not entirely come with bad intentions, such as a fitness app reminding you the importance of exercising a certain part of the body, it is important to remember that many of them have ill intentions and enable you to waste your time. Here are some ways that technology is increasingly becoming a way of changing your behavior. 

It calls you

Chances are you own a smartphone today. You also know how difficult it is to ignore the phone when the screen lights up or the phone starts beeping or buzzing – even if you are in a situation where it is disturbing you, such as when you are in the middle of a lecture or a meeting.

All app makers will include push notifications in their apps to make the user engage. That also explains when a social media app has a notification or you get an email, therefore luring you to open the app and look at the notification – then you find yourself wasting time on scrolling and doing unrelated things.

People will tend to look at their phones multiple times a day, even unconsciously – because the system that operates is mentally encouraging you to expect ‘rewards’. That is why, even if you do not have any notification, you will still scroll your Instagram feed and find out what everyone else is doing – and waste away hours in the process. 

It occupies mental space

Regardless of whether you are looking at your phone or not, and have even decided consciously to not check it, it still has the potential to distract you from what you are doing. A study that was done by the University of Texas and published in the Harvard Business Review found that when a person put their smartphone in the same room as them and tried to work, their cognitive performance and concentration on their work still suffered.

This reduced ability is similar to what sleep deprivation does to your brain when you are trying to concentrate on a task. The researchers found that performance was enhanced significantly when the person places their phone in another room.

It changes your thinking on your options

Thanks to internet access, you are opened up to an entirely new world, such as accessing ‘internet cafes’ and finding out about new locations you never thought of. you might even be looking to buy a new item like a pair of shoes, then find an online seller that offers to ship to your doorstep.

Even though you might have access to any product you can think of, at least theoretically, or any source of information and business that operates online, you notice you will browse those choices through an internet browser that will filter them for you based on criteria such as your interests and location – meaning you are not seeing a significant part of what goes on or what is really available. And you might never realize it, unless you think about it or search for different options deliberately.

It reinforces the beliefs you already have

This is an effect that not many people are aware of – the internet can influence how you think on different issues, including politics and religion. This phenomenon is also known as the ‘filter bubble’, a term coined in 2011 by Eli Pariser, co-founder of Upworthy.

Of course, this will also exist through offline means as well, like when you are making friends, but you ensure these people share similar beliefs to yours.

The algorithms that operate on the internet will tend to filter out information, depending on your interests, search history, geography (where you live), social networks, as well as other factors. This will determine the information you end up getting, which reinforces the thoughts or beliefs you may have. Because the internet has a vast range of information, you are under the illusion that you have a lot of information in front of you, yet what you know is miniscule – and you are only building a virtual echo chamber for yourself. 

It is constantly collecting information about you that can be used to change your choices later

If you have been on social networks or the web platforms for a significant time, you definitely know the concept of targeted advertising and how it operates. Based on your searches and interactions, as well as shopping behavior (mostly when you shop for an item online), you later begin to see ads for the items you were searching for, or even others related to them.

That already should hint to you what is going on – different sellers are doing their best to influence your decisions and encourage you to buy something. You can bypass these kinds of advertising like increasing your privacy when browsing the internet (read here for the 10 best VPNs for Mac, for example), such as adjusting the settings on Facebook, or wishing that you do not want to see targeted ads. You can also go ahead and install ad blockers so that you do not see them anyway.

Final thoughts

While the aforementioned ways are some of the implications of technology, there is no denying that its increasing effects are there for you to observe.