A crowd gathered in Amphitheatre AM on a Monday morning in early May for a seminar that sounded almost academic on paper inside the Mechanical Engineering Building at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon. It’s the kind of event you might overlook while scrolling. However, for years, researchers, ethicists, and many product managers have been up at night discussing the topic of how technology is designed to subtly alter human behavior.
The Dutch behavioral scientist at the center of this particular event, Dr. Jaap Ham, didn’t show up with Silicon Valley theatrics or shock tactics. He brought data. His research, which is based on what academics refer to as Behavior Change Support Systems (though most people outside of universities simply call it persuasive technology), looks at something very unsettling: the extent to which the platforms and apps we use on a daily basis are made to mold us rather than help us.
The fact that this discussion is taking place in an engineering building is somewhat ironic. After all, a large portion of what Ham studies originated in engineering departments that are only three or four thousand miles west of this one. In the 1990s, B.J. Fogg founded Stanford’s Persuasive Technology Lab, which essentially wrote the blueprint that a whole generation of Silicon Valley product designers subsequently followed. alerts. streak counters. scroll endlessly. customized feeds designed to keep users’ attention on screens for as long as it is computationally feasible. Clearly, it worked. Maybe too well.
The specificity of Ham’s work sets it apart from the typical chorus of tech criticism. Instead of just listing the issues, he is investigating how persuasive systems can be tailored to each user’s unique psychological profile and, more subtly, how users might start to protect themselves from the influence of technology. The second part is hardly ever discussed in public. The fact that there is currently a research agenda focused on counter-persuasion and incorporating resistance into the human side of the equation indicates how far the initial concern has come.
The scope of what is being discussed here is difficult to ignore. A sixteen-year-old in Phoenix who constantly checks her phone describes herself as addicted. Unaware of how she got there, a thirteen-year-old from North Carolina spent two hours on TikTok. These are not examples of edge cases. They are the anticipated result of systems that have been carefully designed to achieve that exact outcome. The engineering functioned as planned. The uncomfortable part is that.
127 experts from 18 countries attended the 21st International Conference on Persuasive Technology earlier this year in Hakodate, Japan. An award-winning study looked at “dark patterns,” which are intentional design decisions made to trick users into making choices they weren’t aware of. Another examined the use of adaptive persuasive systems in the management of hypertension. The same psychological processes are used for drastically different purposes. Just that breadth begs serious questions about the true direction of the field.
The Lisbon discussion was introduced and moderated by Manuel Heitor, who has worked for years at the nexus of technological innovation and policy. His presence implied that this was more than just a scholarly endeavor. There is a feeling that the discussion is gradually shifting from lecture halls into spaces where decisions are actually made. This feeling is cautious but growing.
It’s still unclear if it moves quickly enough. However, at least the right questions are being asked somewhere in Lisbon.
