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Slides from my talk at the ESRC Seminar Series on Behaviour Change (at UCL) - a short talk about technological determinism, how tools change the way we behave, and how technology can be designed to change people's behaviour.
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Technological Determinism and Behaviour ChangeAdam N Joinson Bristol Social Marketing CentreBristol Business School
Technological determinism• 'The belief in technology as a key governing
force in society ..’ (Smith, 1977)• Became unpopular in 1990s – socio-technical
perspectives…but…– Now, the question is no longer: does technology
shape human communication, but rather: under what circumstances, in what ways, and to what extent? (Herring, 2004, 26-27)
– Everyone wants to be healthier, but most don’t have enough time for it, so the [Samsung] S5 can now do it for you.
Technology and behaviour change
Tools and Behaviour• First tool use around
3 million years ago.• Early tools
transformed abilities (e.g. to remove flesh from animals)
• May have heralded evolution of energy hungry brain
Tools, Technology and Behaviour
Affordances
• A quality of the object
• An ‘action possibility’
• A ‘perceived’ affordance - relational
Assemblage
• Shove & Southerton, 2000
• Impact (and use) a combination of technological, cultural and social factors
Persuasive technology
• B J Fogg
E-A-S-T framework
Extension• Based on McLuhan’s definition of
media• Technology and tools…
• Make things faster, easier, more efficient.
• Remove barriers to completing an action – ease of completion
• Makes new actions possible• Changes the reward structure
Extension
Amplification
Shaping
Shaping via constraints
Shaping: Rewards
But….. Determinism != Designability
Behavioural Design vs. Unpredictability…
• The Frankenstein Syndrome: One creates a machine for a particular and limited purpose. But once the machine is built, we discover, always to our surprise - that it has ideas of its own; that it is quite capable not only of changing our habits but... of changing our habits of mind (Postman 1983, p. 23)
• Lao Tzu 6th Century BC, "Those who have knowledge, don't predict. Those who predict, don't have knowledge”
Telephone• Dismissed as an ‘electrical toy’• Seen as a broadcast device...
– “dancing party...with no need for a musician” (Nature, 1876)
– Telephone newspapers• Social chat discouraged
– 30% of telephone use ‘unnecessary idle gossip’ (1909)
• …in order to make money out of those users and satisfy the denizens of Wall Street, it has to become ever more intrusive and manipulative. It's condemned, in other words, to intrusive overstretch. Which is why, in the end, it will become a footnote in the history of the internet.
• John Naughton, Guardian, 27th January 2013
Health gadgets and behaviour
Health wearables and behaviour
capture
analyse
Self-monitoring
motivation
share
comparison
Social proof
Ease / simplicity
kairos
Social actors
consistency
Biases / nudges
So…There’s another side to behavioural design and determinism
The inherent unpredictability of human behaviour and adoption of technology
B = f (P, E)