It’s Not You, It’s Your Phone: Talking with Parents and Their Children About “Persuasive Design”

This video of Dr. Benford's breakout session was recorded at the Children's Screen Time Action Network Conference in Boston, MA on April 20, 2018.

Tech companies work hard to maximize the amount of time users spend with their mobile devices, deploying principles of psychological and social influence to sculpt user decision-making and emotional response. As a group, these UX (user experience) design techniques are called “persuasive design.” This breakout session covers how the most common persuasive design techniques work and how to spot them, and explore how educators and people in the helping professions can use this knowledge to connect with parents and their children, address both the stigma of “internet addiction” and the glamour of the “always-on” lifestyle, and help parents and their (older) children align their minute-to-minute use of mobile devices with how they wish they used them day-to-day and month-to-month.

Dr. Criscillia Benford works toward a future where digital tech supports human wellbeing by respecting––at all levels of design and business practice––the autonomy, attention, and creativity of humans, especially children.

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