Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Alter: Defending against addictive design is a historically unprecedented challenge

Adam Alter · a16z Podcast | Addiction vs Popularity in the Age of Virality · Jan 2, 2019 · at 25:13

Adam Alter, author of Irresistible, explains how behavioral science teams in tech companies force consumers to develop defensive habits.

0:00 / 0:17exact quote · 17.3s
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“The only reason we're having this discussion was because there are people out there today who are so good at designing products who have such great teams of behavioral experts they've put together. That we need to discuss how to react against those products, how to deal with them as consumers. That's a really new idea, I think.”

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