Sean Higgins is the founder and CEO of BetterYou, a product that “nudges” you to make better decisions and work toward your goals. He is also an entrepreneur in residence at Techstars, a partner at Router Ventures, and previously founded VidGrid.

Top 3 Takeaways

1. Many products and services employ techniques that play on our behavioral psychology to keep us engaged. Sean and Doug identify many of those techniques and propose tactics and hacks to limit tech addiction and take back your time.
2. Stopping cues, or signals that the user should stop and asses whether they want to continue engaging in their current activity, could be a way to limit tech usage without going against company incentives.
3. Time is the most valuable commodity to us humans, and BetterYou helps users make sure they are spending time on the things that are most important to them.

Show Notes

• [1:25] Sean explains how he sees companies leveraging behavior hacks to keep us addicted to their products.
• [4:15] Doug says just having a phone on your person is an opportunity for content developers to take advantage of your downtime or boredom.
• [7:14] Sean introduced the concept of stopping cues – signals that you should take a moment to think if what you’re doing is actually what you want to be engaging in.
• [8:20] Netflix’s third-biggest competitor is sleep.
• [9:45] Doug explains the current self and future self dynamic.
• [14:45] Could services introduce a “break” product that generates revenue and promotes digital health?
• [18:20] Why emotions like anger are a form of addiction and how news apps prey on them.
• [26:35] Other “counter-hacks” you can use to limit the effects of tech addiction.
• [36:30] Does using tech less make us less likely to upgrade our devices and threaten companies like Apple?
• [37:50] Time is the most valuable commodity for human beings. How does BetterYou help people allocate that time to what they think is most important?

Selected Links

• BetterYou
• Skinner box study (intermittent variable rewards)
• Bottomless soup bowl study
• Goodphone.co

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