Captology and the Role of Technology
The older I get, the more the line between good and bad fades. The use of these two particular polarized words now triggers an uneasy feeling in me. I no longer believe that anything could be absolutely evil, as well as anything could be entirely ethical, goodness is arbitrary. It is overwhelming, but I love how my Behavioural Economics class helps us face those fear, understand them a bit more and therefore, regain us, designers, some control over our creations.
In BJ Fogg’s book on Persuasive Technology, I found comfort in knowing he’s aware of the ethical concerns of the subject described and tried his best to address them whenever he can (Fogg, 2003).
Fogg also acknowledged that the technique can be applied in the opposite way and eventually be designed for evil, but he chose to focus on the positive approaches we could do to pivot from that route. A prime example is when Fogg was introducing the 7 types of persuasive tools (adapted from Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion), he concluded by addressing concerns over privacy, surveillance and control.
The book introduces readers to a much important topic in today’s digital world — Captology.
Captology is the study of computers as persuasive technologies. (Fogg, 2003)
Our entire millennial lives have been intertwined with technology since birth, we deem technology as something obvious, it is a part of us, and we would have separation anxiety being away from it. In other words, technology has become an extension of our limbs, nervous systems and essentially, an extension of ourselves (McLuhan, 1967). It is crucial to understand how this has influenced our perception of the world, the psychological impact it has and what that means as a designer, and as a consumer.
The Functional Triad
The functional triad describes technology as tools, medium and social actors (Fogg, 2003). Understanding these three pillars would help us designers leverage our understanding of computer persuasion and curate our creations to maximize impacts.
Note that our generation interacts with technology as it is another human being and not just a machine. An in-class discussion sparked debates about whether humans prefer machines to be more human-like, a replica, or would they rather be able to distinguish them from a living thing. Human seems to be afraid and cautious of things that replicate us perfectly, such as animals with realistic human faces, or robots that look and act exactly like human beings. The reason why could be similar to opinions about self-cloning. It imposes an existential threat to humanity: Who are we, and if AI is absolutely perfect and can replace us, would humans’ physicality still be essential? Naturally, our brains would be wary of the impact AI and cloning could create.
From a consumer perspective, it is almost even harder to handpick only one intervention that has changed our ways of living, especially when we are born in the era of social media and technology inventions. It is not alien that Instagram, for once, entirely changed us as a society. The infinite scroll, the fabrication of a perfect life, FOMO, the targeted ads, etc. Instagram is a combination of all three parts of the functional triad. “The generation of anxiety”, so they said. Research shows that Gen Z tends to be warier, values transparency and is more cautious with money than their parents, who value experiences and aesthetics a bit more (Bapna, 2021). Many attributes could be detected easily, such as 9/11, the 2007 financial crisis, technology, and of course, COVID 19. Technology, no doubt, has shaped the way we live and interact with each other.
To be able to re-shape the world into a new technology generation that values human well-being would be a valuable asset, and frankly, much needed in the next century.
References:
Bapna, A. (2021, April 28). Decoding the enigma of gen Z consumers: Transparency, authenticity and honesty. The Drum. Retrieved April 21, 2022, from https://www.thedrum.com/news/2021/04/28/decoding-the-enigma-gen-z-consumers-transparency-authenticity-and-honesty
Fogg. (2003). Persuasive technology: Using computers to change what we think and do. Morgan Kaufmann.
McSpadden, K. (2015, May 14). Science: You now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish. Time. Retrieved April 21, 2022, from https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/
