Maybe It’s Not Just #addiction
▻https://hackernoon.com/blind-to-vigilance-7e9b72ab2ad4?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3---4
Technologists often oversimplify. Consider the contemporary tendency to describe all types of heavy smartphone usage as addiction. Smartphones and apps certainly have some built-in addictiveness thanks to a number of surreptitious #design patterns. But addiction is not the whole story. And in some cases, I’d argue it’s the wrong story altogether.Users are not just addicted: they are also (and more often) being vigilant.Vigilance is the allocation of significant attentional resources to perform sustained watchfulness. This watchfulness is extreme and associated with self-preservation; for example, a zebra keeping eyes and ears open for predators while also grazing. Animals who aren’t at the top of the food chain spend considerable time and energy being vigilant.We humans are of course at (...)