Nir Eyal

This article is about the author. For the bioethicist, see Nir Eyal (bioethicist).
Nir Eyal
Nir Eyal in 2019
Nir Eyal in 2019
OccupationAuthor
LanguageEnglish
Education
Subjectpsychology, technology, business
Notable works
  • Hooked (2014)
  • Indistractable (2019)
Website
www.nirandfar.com

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.[2]

Academic and literary career

After graduating from the Master of Business Administration program at Stanford in 2008,[5] Eyal and fellow students founded a company that placed online ads in Facebook, with Eyal serving as CEO.[3] His work in the company sparked his interest in the psychology of users, and he went on to become a consultant in product design.[3] In 2012, he taught a course in the program on product design at the Stanford University School of Engineering.[3][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, similar to the arguments used by tobacco and gambling company lobbyists.[1]

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

Published works

  • Eyal, Nir (2019). Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. BenBella Books. ISBN 978-1948836531.
  • Eyal, Nir (2014). Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Random House. ISBN 978-1591847786.

References

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