unraveled

Jakob Compares Users to Rats

In Glamour obscures basics of net use, Jakob Nielsen compares the way people use the Web to conditioning rats:

“We have a concept of conditioning rats by giving them a lever to press for food. The best way to keep the rat pressing the lever is if you randomly reward it.

“The web is exactly like this. Every now and then you come across great stuff, and you think, ‘If I only click once more I might find something.’ So you keep going longer than you should.”

(via Makovision)

  1. This sounds like the Amazon model also. Some folks get Gold Box then nearly everybody gets it, now it seems to be gone. I went to Amazon everyday to look in the Gold Box, but I never bought. I found cool stuff as I wandered around.

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