Hooked

Nir Eyal's new book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, terrifies me. It terrifies me because it is so powerful, and offers up tools that can—indeed, are meant to—alter our behavior in addictive ways. Scratch that... that have altered our behavior in addictive ways.

79 percent of smartphone owners check their device within 15 minutes of waking up every morning. Perhaps more startling, fully one-third of Americans say they would rather give up sex than lose their cell phones.

A 2011 university study suggested people check their phones 34 times per day. However, industry insiders believe that number is closer to an astounding 150 daily sessions.

Face it, we're hooked.

Eyal dives into how this has happened, and more importantly, how you can build products that trigger this to happen—because top-of-mind is no longer good enough, we need to build things that stick in our customers' mind and attach to internal triggers in their daily lives.

We recently chose Hooked as one of the five best books in the Marketing category of our 2014 Business Book Awards Longlist, and it's looking hard to beat in that category. That's because the book is not only powerful, it imbues the reader with what seems like a superpower, because building habit-forming products is, Eyal says, a new superpower:

Recently, a blog reader emailed me, "If it can't be used for evil, it's not a superpower." He's right. And under this definition, building habit-forming products is indeed a superpower.

If used irresponsibly, bad habits can quickly degenerate into mindless zombie-like addictions.

But, that's not the entire story...

When harnessed correctly, technology can enhance lives through healthful behaviors that improve our relationships, make us smarter, and increase productivity.

That may seem like a big if, but the reality is that these products are already in our midst and an integral part of our lives. It's not really a choice of whether we want to use them; it's how to best use them so they're not using us. And, if we're in the marketplace, how to compete against them.

We have to get this right, for ourselves and in the products we develop, and Nir Eyal's new book is the first I know of that takes on how to do so, honestly and unflinchingly, from a product-development standpoint. It's an important, sometimes scary, and really powerful book.

We have 20 copies to give away.