Nir Eyal Explained

Nir Eyal
Occupation:Author
Language:English
Subject:psychology, technology, business

Nir Eyal is an Israeli-born American author, lecturer, and investor known for his bestselling book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.[1]

Biography

Nir Eyal was born on February 19, 1980, in Hadera, Israel. When he was three, his family immigrated to the United States and settled in a suburb of Orlando, Florida.[2] [3] [4] He earned a B.A. at Emory University in 2001.[5] He then worked for Boston Consulting Group and started a solar panel company before attending Stanford for his MBA.

Academic and literary career

After graduating from the Master of Business Administration program at Stanford in 2008, Eyal and fellow students founded a company that placed online ads in Facebook, with Eyal serving as CEO. His work in the company sparked his interest in the psychology of users, and he went on to become a consultant in product design. In 2012, he taught a course in the program on product design at the Stanford University School of Engineering.[6]

Eyal's expertise is in behavioral engineering, which incorporates elements of behavioral science to enable software designers to develop habit-forming products for businesses.[7] He has taught university courses, given speeches, and published books about the intersection of psychology and technology, and business. His writing has appeared in Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, Psychology Today and other publications.[8] [9] [10] [11]

In 2014 Eyal published his first book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, which became a Wall Street Journal best seller.[12] [13] The title reflects Eyal's idea of the "hooked model", which aims to "build products that create habit-forming behavior in users via a looping cycle that consists of a trigger, an action, a variable reward, and continued investment."[14]

His second book, Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life, was written with Julie Li and published in September 2019.[15] [16]

Eyal has spoken out against over-broad proposals to regulate habit-forming technologies, arguing that it is an individual user's responsibility to control their own use of such products.

In March 2020, he wrote an article for The New York Times titled "Home-Schooling Tweens and Teens During Coronavirus Closings."[17]

Published works

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Klein . Ezra . August 7, 2019 . Is Big Tech addictive? A debate with Nir Eyal . October 6, 2019 . VOX.
  2. News: Bowles . Nellie . October 6, 2019 . Addicted to Screens? That's Really a You Problem . en-US . The New York Times . October 17, 2019 . 0362-4331.
  3. News: How to Cure Your Kids' Addiction to Technology . en . Haaretz . 2022-12-28.
  4. Web site: Klug . Lisa . A ‘kibbutz’ experience in California does wonders for the soul . 2022-12-28 . www.timesofisrael.com . en-US.
  5. "Nir Eyal." Contemporary Authors Online. Gale, 2015. Retrieved via Gale in Context: Biography database, October 11, 2019.
  6. Web site: Shinal . John . The professor who wrote the book on making addictive technology is having second thoughts . 2022-12-28 . CNBC . en.
  7. Web site: Compulsive Behavior Sells . 2022-12-28 . MIT Technology Review . en.
  8. Web site: Eyal . Nir . June 23, 2019 . How the people who built Slack use it without going bonkers . October 11, 2019 . Fast Company.
  9. News: Eyal . Nir . 2014-11-12 . How Customers Get Hooked on Products . Harvard Business Review . 2022-12-28 . 0017-8012.
  10. Web site: Eyal . Nir . August 31, 2016 . Should Companies Stop People From Getting Hooked . October 11, 2016 . The Atlantic.
  11. Web site: Are We Really Having Fun at Bars or Just Escaping Reality? Psychology Today . November 5, 2022 . www.psychologytoday.com . en-US.
  12. Web site: Matveeva . Sophia . Essential Technology Books For Non-Technical Founders . 2022-12-28 . Forbes . en.
  13. Web site: Fowler . Geoffrey A. . Take Back Your Brain From Social Media . 2022-12-28 . WSJ . en-US.
  14. Web site: How the ‘Hook Model’ Can Turn Customers Into Addicts . 2022-12-28 . Fortune . en.
  15. Web site: Eyal . Nir . June 5, 2018 . This behavioral designer’s top brain hacks for beating distraction . October 11, 2019 . Fast Company.
  16. Web site: Fell . Jason . 2019-05-07 . 4 Steps to Breaking Free from Time Constraints and Living the Life You Want . 2022-12-28 . Entrepreneur . en.
  17. News: Eyal . Nir . Home-Schooling Tweens and Teens During Coronavirus Closings . 6 March 2023 . The New York Times . 12 March 2020.