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.
If you wanted to previously find an image that perfectly matched what you saw in your head online, you had to type in a wordy search inquiry and would get countless results back. Now, that mental snapshot can be crafted in seconds by artificial intelligence and sometimes it’s even better than you could imagine.
Google on Wednesday disclosed plans to infuse its dominant search engine with more advanced artificial-intelligence technology, a drive that's in response to one of the biggest threats to its long-established position as the internet's main gateway.
