Ah, Candy Crush. You saw your friend playing it and downloaded it just to try it out. Two weeks later, you were on level 87 and your eyes burned from staring at the screen for too long. This was no accident. Candy Crush paved the way for future addictive apps, counting on three things to keep you swiping: dopamine, hedonic adaptation and gambler’s fallacy.
Every time you do something well in a game (pass a level, get a new high score), dopamine is released in your brain. This neurotransmitter makes you happy, and you want that feeling to continue, so you keep playing.
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Over time, however, this release of dopamine doesn’t affect you like it used to. This is called hedonic adaptation. It basically means that humans have evolved to function in whatever environment in which they are placed. Even the most terrible or amazing things become commonplace sooner or later. So, Candy Crush sets a timer on your game. After five losses, you’re locked out and have to wait the endless minutes until your lives replenish. This causes you to crave the game and love it even more when you play the next time.
But, of course, some people find themselves unable to wait for new lives. That’s when gambler’s fallacy kicks in, a mindset where a person believes they would have the ability to beat the odds (or the game) if only they had one more chance. This never-ending belief in ourselves and our “talents” is the main thing that keeps us addicted. Gambler’s fallacy causes millions of people to waste money on another life because they’re just so close to winning.
Candy Crush is by no means the only app doing this. Flappy Bird used these same principles to great effect when it was burning up the App Store charts in 2013. The app’s creator pulled the game at the peak of its popularity, causing a panic and an unbelievable desire to play.
Now, apps don’t need to worry about hedonic adaptation. Apps like Tricky Shot and Swipe rely solely on gambler’s fallacy. Similar to Angry Birds and Brick Breaker, both apps have a seemingly increased level of difficulty. Instead of simply tapping a bird on your screen or swapping candy, you need to drag a line to choose the precise angle you want to release the ball from. By creating an added level of “difficulty” users believe that the entire game is in their control and no more luck is involved. This makes them more susceptible to gambler’s fallacy and gets them hooked almost immediately.
All of these apps are following the same formula to keep us glued to our phones. It’s no surprise that we keep falling into the same traps and getting addicted even after we finally forced ourselves to delete 2048.
