Does self-regulation come best delivered via an in-app experience?
Is this our new preferred method for forming habits? For me, I think it might be.
As we’re entering Day…. of a forced ‘stay at home’ period or lockdown in Sydney I’m reflecting on the daily rituals I’ve put in place and the purpose or benefit they serve me.
Sustained behaviour change is embedded in the formation of habits but has an inherent formula associated with it too.
It was coincidental that I found myself listening to a Clubhouse led forum hosted by YAP Media CEO Hala Taha with one of the gurus of Behaviour Design, BJ Fogg as I started to write this piece. Fogg is a Stanford University Professor featured for his insight on how to instil daily habits that stick. Through his years of research he’s developed a framework called the Fogg Behaviour Model. Essentially he teases out the elements of how to cultivate good daily habits and the formula for success he believes is grounded in: Behaviour = Motivation, Ability, Trigger (or Prompt), B=MAT.
Did you know that there are six factors relating to ability that contribute to motivation as it can be positively and negatively influenced? To learn more about his model in a fast fashion, take in this overview from Growth Engineering, they explain it super well!
One of the takeaways I picked up from BJ during his Clubhouse panel was that motivation CAN’T be a ‘bolt on’ after you decide to create behaviour change, it has to be intrinsic to the process.
BJ’s book Tiny Habits is one of a few now renowned texts available that draw on the concepts of teaching the brain to change its behaviour. I really like this definition from this Observer article where Erik Johnson tackled the topic of Behavioural Design as an emergent trend in 2017:
Whether called behavioural design, product psychology, or behavioural science, there’s never been this level of interest, excitement, or opportunities to understand the quirks of the human mind and use this knowledge to change how people live. From the highest levels of government to the C-Suite, behavioural science is being applied in the real world and tackling big problems.
How we’re marketed to is affected by our reliance on the apps and the data we’re providing
As I see it today in 2021 in our everyday lives there is a huge reliance on apps to track, monitor, and control our state of wellness. They feel commonplace, especially as I scroll through Instagram. On any given hour I will be asked to sign up for a new phyte-digital exercise experience whether it’s Kayla Itsines Fitness Method or alomoves or other [insert fitness brand name] for online yoga or pilates workout apps fed straight to my phone. There are a HUGE number to choose from, it’s hard not to succumb. I also notice a new branch to this trend, a propulsion toward an app ecosystem to support mental health and our overall wellbeing.
For example help is now at hand for us to learn the art of cognitive behavioural therapy via apps like Bloom. And if we’d like to we can learn methods in correcting low self worth/ esteem perceptions, all with a friendly accountability coach built into an app’s framework or in some instances an app will promise to connect you with a counsellor to receive ‘therapy from the couch’.
I don’t know how other’s are faring but my reliance on speaking to a real person in times of crisis is a current preference but I did note following a chat with a psychologist that he’s logging back-to-back calls from his home office. Potentially this in itself points to a gap whereby support of IRL conversations via a complementary app guide could alleviate the inaccessibility issue that arises, as he’s booked out up to a month in advance.
This article has filtered the plethora of choices and awarded a top 8 for mood focused apps to move our minds toward existing in a state of flourishing. But there are also apps for discovering how to connect meaningfully with your partner (or prospective partner) via ClarityApp.io and even those that focus on the meditation of the mind through erotic storytelling.
The trend towards instilling behaviour change via apps has grown of course in line with the volume of entrepreneurs operating in the behavioural design sphere, but also for the success that brands are finding encouraging new takes on old styles.
Facebook and other social media platform’s access to customer data and their ability to filter at such granular levels who we are as individuals feels an important other factor to these apps ‘sink or swim’ success and personally I observe as a single, woman it’s no accident that I’m receiving an influx in the number of ads served to encourage the take up of apps that promise to deliver me some new health benefit — whichever way I swipe. These suggestions are surely predicated on the fact I’m already following fitness brands, influencers and commentators who all have assumed their own unique position in this multi-layered conversation, wellness.
Back to my audit…
Where I’ve landed prompts me to recognise that I am like so many others who choose to rely on the use of the app ecosystem to create structure and routine in my life. But in 2021 what looks like a healthy need to maintain and create ‘healthy’ habits of discipline has also forced me to ask whether I’m masking a more sinister mental health hurdle, which is ironic because it probably denotes the need for yet another app to help me support myself through it. The questions I have come up against are these.
- Does a need exist to control whatever is left to be controlled in my currently rather retracted world?
- By completing the challenges and showing up for myself am I instilling discipline or leading myself towards an obsessive compulsivity where if I don’t reach that attainable goal set out for this week I’ll start to decline?
- And, does that determine my reliance and potential addiction for the app ecosystem too?
Habit forming apps and positive behaviour change speak to my overarching core values and growth mindset.
Ultimately I’ve concluded that all of this behaviour is about supporting one of my fundamental values. After an audit and assessment of the apps I use on the reg and their purpose for being categorised in the fitness and wellness folders on my phone it’s emphatically obvious to me that I’m driven or rather motivated by the opportunity for growth and continuous improvement of my circumstance.
If an app has tapped an ability to unlock in me a way to learn and adapt through my monitored behaviours and enlists those fun ‘gamified’ tactics to manage my idling attention span then it lasts on my phone screen’s real estate. Yep it’s old school I know. I don’t like wearing a watch, hence no need for another apple device to beep at me endlessly. And, if you did the learning on BJ Fogg’s Behaviour Model I pointed you to earlier that gamification element actually correlates to one of the three elements intrinsic to creating motivation in the first place: sensation! The other two are considered to be anticipation and creating belonging.
Suffice to say that I choose to keep an app if it delivers me the semblance of routine and order and overall instills levels of wellbeing personalised to me.
What about you?
How do you observe this and manage this in your day-to-day?
Curious to learn about the wellness apps I seem to not live a day/week/month without accessing and the reasons I’m using them? Read part two here.
