Hooked by Nil Eyal detail book summary and download pdf | Nepal reads

Namaskar readers, welcome to Nepal Reads. Today in this blog I will be writing about "Hooked" book summary. It is one of the best book written on personal development. Although reading complete book is recommended, you can just go through the Hooked book summary if you don’t have time.

79 percent smartphone user immediately use their smartphones as they get up in the morning. They don't find brushing teeth and talking to someone at home or close ones important or necessary in front of checking their cell phone notifications and even I come under this 79 percent. 

We must accept the fact that these big companies has made us addictive towards their product. We people have been hooked or trapped and became addictive to this social media platforms. We use cell phones thinking that for only few minutes will be using it, but as we start using internet, hour passes and we don't even realize.

Why exactly it happens? Why we people are so addictive to internet social media platforms and for games?

Today you will come to know, secrets and techniques of all these things. When author used to work for gaming and advertising industry, at that time he used to think that how's it possible like at one hand few companies spend million in order to create their awesome products on the other hand few companies sell things under virtual gaming and earn millions.

Even I have seen an unbelievable fact post on Facebook where it was shown like EA Games Company will charge money for need to spend on limit game petrol which will be used under the game to drive car. After reading this post many people were angry. They were saying how stupid people can be. How people can pay for virtual things like paying for petrol, that too which will be providing under game. 

But to be very frank there is not much difference between them and us. Actually its nothing new since very long, companies are earning a lot or in million by selling virtual things under games.

Hence here your question shouldn't be like how people can be so stupid instead it should be how companies are so smart and earning million through selling virtual things. What all techniques they have used and made this thing possible. What’s scientific reason behind these things & how people have become so addictive to their games and products because of which people not only give their time but also agrees to pay for it and how we can learn from them and what all things we can do for ourselves and for business growth.

If you are interested in finding out answers for such questions then in today's amazing book summary I will give answer for these questions. 

So let's begin The biggest reason because of which we spend hours using internet is nothing but our own habits. Amongst all the work we do regularly, 40 percent work is done on the bases of our habit and by understanding it very well and with the use of one concept big companies are able to manipulate us and that concept is known as hook as per author.

Author says every good thing which pass on through the hook cycle, unwillingly becomes our habit and to do that think we never think about our time, money and energy. We can't stay without doing it hence big companies use hook model in order to create habit forming product and it is made up of 4 parts or can say these are 4 phase through which we human continuously pass and becomes addictive of their products.

1. Trigger

The way key is needed to start a car similarly to start hook cycle there is a need of trigger. Trigger tells people what should be their next action. It works as reminder, after getting it people able to remember about companies’ product and they start using it. 

Example : whenever person gets a notification of any YouTube video, after watching that notification video people start watching other videos. This is an example of external trigger.

Usually there are 2 types of triggers, first External Trigger and second Internal Trigger.

External Trigger

Trigger which comes in your brain because of others not because of you then that is external trigger under this also there are different types of trigger such as

• Paid Triggers: These triggers are bought such as advertisement, SMS etc.
• Earned Triggers: Which is taken with the help of PR Activity and campaign
• Relationship Trigger: Where your Friends or relatives recommend you about some product
• Own Trigger: Whenever user download your app, and when they see your app icon in their phone they remember about you and start using your app. Usually all different notifications are example of these triggers

Now the main point is Big Companies put lot of focus and spend millions for this external triggers whereas Internal Triggers are much powerful than this external Triggers for creating habit forming products.

Internal Trigger

It is which comes from Inside i.e. any user or customer feels trigger by themselves. Here user or customer’s brain by itself remind person about the product and encourage them to use. 

Best example for this is Instagram, whenever user of Instagram feels that there is some special moments or time going in their life, they immediately capture those moments and store it on Instagram, because of this they feel they will never going to lose those moments and they have saved their special time. This thing emotionally satisfies them and slowly this thing becomes their habit and they start capturing and sharing every small moments. 

Hence always remember one important thing your product should make your customer or user feel emotionally satisfied or good or else your product should lesser their pain. 

At start every product or app needs to be spread through external trigger but your aim should be on internal trigger so that people again and again use your product through internal trigger not because of external trigger. 

In order to reach till internal trigger it’s really important for you to reduce your customer's pain and should satisfy them emotionally and should make them happy. 

Example: YouTube Eliminates Boring emotion, Facebook eliminates loneliness and Google eliminates confusion, curiosity. 

Similarly even your product should solve others problem or else should make others feel good because if users don't feel good by using your product then no matter what you do, you will never able to create habit forming product.

 

1. After Trigger Comes phase of Action:

Before WhatsApp there were many messaging apps, through which you can send messages to your contact. But the thing which creates difference and which made WhatsApp such a huge hit was its simplicity. For using WhatsApp user has to take very simple and easy actions and steps at start. 

Hence hook model 2^nd step is Action. 

Without action habit can never be formed, and users will take action only when they get reward after taking action. There are various type of rewards which I will mention later. 

The main thing which we will discuss is the more people get reward by less action the more they'll take action as per your preferences and the more they will form habit. 

With same WhatsApp example, earlier for every messaging app there was need to create login password and id in order to use it whereas on the other side for WhatsApp you need to register your phone number just for ones and after taking that one simple action user get reward of unlimited messaging reward. Hence this simple easy step and action and less brain power and free nature has made WhatsApp so much successful and huge. So try to make your product and service as simple as you can.

2.  Reward:

If I keep a normal fridge in front of you and ask you to open it and see what’s inside it and close it and I ask you to repeat this process continuously till you feel like doing. 

How many time will you repeat that process? Maybe you'll do it for some times. But suppose if I keep another fridge in front of you. No matter how many times you open it, every time you open it, you'll see different delicious food. So I am sure you'll open such fridge again and again without my permission or without my saying you'll do it happily and with an excitement.

After taking any action people expect Reward, and if they don't get reward they will not take action or will get bored. In fact not only this if we people get same reward always similar to that normal fridge we'll get bored easily.  

Hence it’s really very important that people or users get variable rewards and different kind of rewards always. 

Example: The reason Facebook is so addictive is when you get into news feed and take simple step means when you flick your finger over your Facebook page (news feed) by that simple action, you’ll able to see different things, some interesting things  and some not, some good images post and videos or some bad and various other things. You'll able to see just by finger flick and because of this variable reward people spend hours on Facebook and becomes addictive. 

Similarly if you want to create habit forming product, try to keep novelty in your product and try not to give same thing again and again. Do keep variation otherwise users can get bored. 

3.Investment

Have you ever thought why video games are so addictive, and why people play it so many times? 

Well this book shares various reasons but the biggest reason is, while playing,  people invest a lot in a game. Here you must have thinking like investment for what? 

People invest their time, energy while increasing their achievements. It becomes difficult for them to leave that game, and they keep playing it, because they feel everything will be wasted if they don't play it.

Along with Trigger, Action and Reward, another the most important thing which is required to form addictive product is User’s Investment. The more user invest their time energy, resources, efforts, data and social currency, the more user will become addictive or dependent on your product. 

Example : Investment for people on Facebook is they start increasing their friend list, and they start filling their profile and start uploading pics and other things on it. All these things are kind of investment. 

Even in mail sites, whenever person use mails like yahoo or Gmail, all important mail which user receives starts getting saved and the more user starts getting dependent and never switch to other sites. 

Another great example is of QWERTY keyboards. Today various other keyboards are available which is specially created to increase people typing speed and efficiency but still people use QWERTY keyboard because people have invested their time and energy in learning that keyboard, and everything will be wasted if they switch to another keyboard and by switching they will require a lot of efforts at least at start. 

Hence even today people don't replace Qwerty Keyboard with any other keyboard. Hence even your product should be like where people invest some kind of resource into it. The more people will have their investment in your product, the more they will value your product and also they will use it more.

These are the most interesting knowledge and information from an amazing book known as Hooked by Nir Eyal. 

This book contains various other important and useful knowledge regarding business and habits so if you have an interest in business or want to create addictive habit forming product or services just like face book, twitter and google then for you reading this book is really very important.