Learn From Your Phone Addiction

Big Tech invests billions to remove friction

I can just about remember a time where the apps didn’t have ‘infinite scroll’, and you had to manually choose what to pay attention to.

Not anymore!

In fact, it’s been shown to be possible to watch just the hook of 1000 TikTok videos in 60 minutes - which must be some kind of Guinness World Record for brain rot.

But this lack of friction is also what food companies use to keep people eating

Food apps use it to keep people ordering

The ‘bottomless soup bowl’ concept in nutrition psychology also highlights this, people eat significantly more when their bowl automatically refills because visual cues of ‘finishing’ are removed.

We can add or take away friction, depending on whether we want it or not.

You’re probably very good at manipulating friction in your coaching with people

You use an app to help your delivery of your programme

You probably teach clients to change their food environment to increase friction, or put gym clothes out the night before to remove friction

But you can be the friction puppeteer in your business, too.

Sometimes we want to reduce friction (think Manychat for lead magnet delivery, Calendly links to allow people to book in with you asynchronously)

But also we want to increase friction sometimes - application forms for people to work with us, small deposits for discovery calls, longer form content that actually makes your audience think and doesn’t spoon feed them answers

As with anything - there’s no all or nothing with friction - the right amount will depend on your audience, your context, your objective and your own personal preference.