At this point, most of us feel we couldn't live without our smartphones. With texting, email, and hundreds of apps available, smartphones rarely leave the palm of our hands. And this dependence is enabled by addictive apps and feedback mechanisms called intermittent variable rewards.
Cody Gough is an editor and podcast host at Curiosity.com. He explains how developers have engineered apps so that they give consumers rewards every time the app is visited. This increases engagement frequency and time. In the new age of advertising, consumer time is money.
Gough offers tips to kick cellphone addiction. He recommends charging your phone in a different room and avoiding mindless scrolling when possible. He also suggests keeping other tech and toys handy for downtime. Packing a book or Kindle for your commute will prevent mindless Twitter scrolling.
Virgin Galactic is taking its first space tourists on a long-delayed rocket ship ride, including a former British Olympian who bought his ticket 18 years ago and a mother-daughter duo from the Caribbean.
Described as hallucination, confabulation or just plain making things up, it's now a problem for every business, organization and high school student trying to get a generative AI system to compose documents and get work done.
