The document discusses the concept of compulsion loops in media and marketing, highlighting how new technologies shape user behavior and engagement. It emphasizes the psychological mechanisms behind habitual actions that lead to neurochemical rewards, as well as the need for modern marketing to cultivate user habits to maintain emotional dependencies. Furthermore, it explores the evolution of media from traditional forms to social networking, examining the implications for advertisers in a fragmented media landscape.

1. Compulsion Loops
Compulsive Behavior As Mass Media
Image: http://imgur.com/gallery/D6mhR

2. A presentation to students attending the
Michigan State University: Study Abroad
2012: Mass Media in the UK programme.

3. Who are you guys?

4. Richard Buchanan @replayzero
— Creative Strategist (Ideas)
Adam Crowe @adamcrowe
— Engagement Strategist (Interactions)
We look for behavioral patterns shaped by
new technologies and use those patterns
to create clever ideas and engaging
interactions to connect people to brands.

5. 1. The Evolution of Media
2. Compulsion Loops
3. Why is this happening?

6. The Evolution of Media

7. The Evolution of Media
Gathering around PEOPLE Gathering around CONTENT
Gathering around PEOPLE ONLINE Gathering around ACTIVITIES ONLINE

8. The Evolution of Media
Gathering around PEOPLE: Communication
● 70% Nonverbal, "Tribal", "Oral", "Acoustic Space" (McLuhan)
● This was before media and when advertising was mostly word-of-mouth
Gathering around CONTENT: Mass Media
● Print, Radio, TV, Advertising, "Literal" "Visual" (McLuhan)
● The golden age of mass media/mass advertiser/mass consumer symbiosis
Gathering around PEOPLE ONLINE: Social Networking
● Bonding/Gossip/Identity/Status "Retribalization" (McLuhan)
● Online socializing relies on media platforms but advertisers are resented
Gathering around ACTIVITIES ONLINE: Compulsion Loops
● Social Data: Friends/Likes/Points "Consensus" (McLuhan)
● Frequent activity is encouraged by media platforms to attract advertisers

9. People (Online): Communication
Email
IM/Chat/Skype
Mobile: Voice/Text
} Talking
Activities (Online): Information
"Social" Networking
"Social" Gaming
"Social" Curation
} Clicking

10. Online activities
Relationships
Achievements
Infographic: David McCandless

11. Compulsion Loops?

12. Compulsion Loops
● def. Compulsion Loop: A habitual behavior that a
human will repeat to gain a neurochemical reward: a
feeling of pleasure and/or a relief from pain. Not doing
the behavior causes discomfort.
● Media is no longer about simply capturing attention; it is
about cultivating habits within users so that they will be
compelled to return to, and engage with, a system.

13. We are talking about
the psychobiology and
neurochemistry
of media

14. “All media are extensions of some
human faculty – psychic or physical.
The wheel is an extension of the foot.
The book is an extension of the the eye.
Clothing, an extension of the skin.
Electric circuitry, an extension of the
central nervous system.”
— Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects

15. “... we have extended all parts of our bodies and senses by
technology, we are haunted by the need for an outer consensus
of technology and experience that would raise our communal
lives to the level of world-wide consensus.” — Marshall McLuhan

16. This is a placenta

17. Image: bellies2babies.com

18. “Man is condemned to be free; because once
thrown into the world, he is responsible for
everything he does.” — Jean-Paul Sartre

19. Existential Facts of Life:
People don't know what they want
because they are hopelessly and
inescapably conflicted, caught
between the need for both security
and novelty.

20. Security Novelty
Control
Security Novelty
Relationships Achievement
Conformity Individuality/Identity
Belonging/Safety Choice/Freedom
Domesticity Adventure
Consistency (Life) Risk (Loss/Pain/Death)

21. Thus:
Modern marketing wants to help
people manage this overwhelming
sense of choice in order to achieve
a sense of belonging.

22. Problem:
Mass mediums have fragmented.
Big advertising budgets can no longer
guarantee the scheduled delivery of
an audience to advertisers.
Image: http://bit.ly/JKEV8b

23. How will media survive?
Cultivate habits within users so they will
be compelled to return and engage with
a system (hopefully creating social
entanglement in the process).
Image: http://bit.ly/JSnwDO

24. From hunting and tracking
to cultivating and harvesting

25. Why are we telling you this?

26. Desktop Internet vs Mobile Internet
Image: http://bit.ly/LIwuYp Image: http://bit.ly/KNNhoF

27. Know Thy Compulsion Loop

28. Image: http://bit.ly/2XOR1Jg
“In the emerging, highly programmed
landscape ahead, you will either create the
software or you will be the software. It’s really
that simple: Program, or be programmed.”
— Douglas Rushkoff

29. Prediction:
Successful future media platforms
will be those that cultivate and
then service their users' emotional
dependencies.

30. Compulsion Loops

31. Compulsion Loops
● def. Compulsion Loop: A habitual behavior that a
human will repeat to gain a neurochemical reward: a
feeling of pleasure and/or a relief from pain. Not doing
the behavior causes discomfort.
● Dopamine motivates novelty-seeking behavior. Both
novelty-seeking (achievement) and relationship-seeking
(security) behaviors are rewarded with Endorphins
(pleasure and/or pain relief).

32. The Compulsion Spiral
Compulsion Loops foster loyalty and commitment
through giving us the sense of making progress.

33. Dopamine
Dopamine “Dopamine is not about pleasure, it's
about the anticipation of pleasure.”
Video: http://youtu.be/axrywDP9Ii0

34. Intermittent Variable Rewards
Maybe you'll be rewarded as before.
Inconsistency! (security vs novelty)
Image: Spinning by quinn.anya on Flickr

35. B = MAT
TRIGGER (stimulus) (at the same ACTION (response)
moment)
Internal: Feeling Ability: Easy - Hard
Dopamine released
(negative: pain/loss), to encourage work Motivation: Low - High
towards REWARD
Time, Context, Routine
Trigger: Sufficient given
External: Cue, Prompt, ability and motivation?
Call, Offer, Request
Endorphins released
to REWARD ACTION
COMMITMENT REWARD
(reinforcement)
Types (security vs novelty):
Pay (with time, money, data,
Survival: Resources
share, invite) to do the Dopamine released
to encourage work Social: Relationships
ACTION again. Paying towards REWARD
Self: Reputation
rationalizes ACTION to
maintain consistent self-image Based on Desire Engine Canvas by NirAndFar.com

36. ACTION (response)
High
Motivation
HIGH MOTIVATION HIGH MOTIVATION
LOW ABILITY HIGH ABILITY
MOTIVATION
Trigger
Success
Trigger LOW MOTIVATION
Fail HIGH ABILITY
Low
Motivation
Low Ability: Hard to do ABILITY High Ability: Easy to do
BJ Fogg's Behavior Model behaviormodel.org

37. Triggers “More and more of those [hot] triggers are
coming through our peers ... ”
Video: http://youtu.be/5WaToiunuWY

38. Analytics (They're watching you, Neo.)
Control room of the Cyworld portal, operated by SK Communications, Seoul, Korea.

39. “Games can produce enormous volumes of
data because it’s really simple to gather every
little interaction the player has in the game ...
Zynga, for example, uses data to determine
which design choices create greater tendencies
for players to stay engaged longer, involve
more friends, or pay to enhance the game
experience…”
— John Ferrara in: A Gaming Revolution, Minus the Hype

40. “[T]he data trail we create
online can hem us in and trap
us.... [O]ur past history
becomes inescapable, shaping
the contours of the online
experience we can have, which
more and more shapes the
kind of life experience we can
have generally, limiting what
we know about, what we do
and how we are seen and what
we accomplish.”
— Rob Horning: "Engagement Ads" on
Facebook

41. Examples...

42. Image: http://bit.ly/yILgOq

43. 526 million daily active users (Source: Facebook, March 2012)
Average monthly use per visitor: 405 minutes
(Pinterest: 89, Tumblr: 89, Twitter: 21, Google+: 3)
(Source: comScore, January 2012)
Average of 3.2 billion likes and comments per day during
the first quarter of 2012
(Source: Facebook, April 2012)
48% of 18–34 year olds check Facebook immediately after
they wake up (Source: onlineschools.org, November 2011)
Image: Facebook

44. B = MAT
Trigger (at the same Action
moment)
I: At PC or on Mobile, Waking, A: Easy if at PC of on Mobile:
Waiting, Watching, Loneliness, Dopamine released Log in, check updates and
to encourage work
Boredom, Indecision, Fatigue, notifications, Easy to update
towards REWARD
Excitement/Anxiety (FOMO) status or click 'Like'
E: Update email, tab notice, See app M: Very high if messaged or
icon/logo/name, See 'Like' button, feeling lonely, bored or anxious
See link to FB content
Endorphins released
to REWARD ACTION
Commitment Reward
Click 'Like', Create account, Add Res: Adding content/data to
personal data, Import email contacts, renew connections with friends
Add friend, Update status, Rel: Added, Messaged, Liked,
Dopamine released
Comment, Customize profile, Commented, Tagged, Invited
to encourage work
Upload photos, Add Event, towards REWARD
Update personal Information Rep: Friends (Count), Groups
(relationship status), Install mobile app
Based on Desire Engine Canvas by NirAndFar.com

45. Facebook: Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
● The Hot Nightclub... that every one is at, and so no one
wants to be left out. People fear missing out on shared
experiences because if other people weren't there with
you, it didn't happen ("pics or it didn't happen").
● Social Casino: Staying at the tables, adding more data
to improve the odds of receiving the (intermittent and
variable) reward of a feeling of belonging (security).
● Talent Show: People perform for the sake of gaining
attention and reward their friends for gaining attention.
People narrow the range of their social performances to
only those that will fit Facebook's talent show format.

46. Image: http://bit.ly/Krjvcu

47. ZYNGA

48. 4.4 million daily average users (Source: AppData, May 2012)
Cisco estimated players spent an average of 68 minutes a
day playing (Source: AdAge Digital, October 2010)
Zynga’s core paying audience is 30-55 year old females
ZYNGA
(Source: Inside Social Games, July 2010)
...if you plant a field of pumpkins at noon, for example, you must return to
harvest at eight o’clock that evening or risk losing the crop. Planting requires
the user to click on each square three times: once to harvest the previous
crop, once to re-plow the square of land, and once to plant the new seeds.
This means that a fourteen by fourteen plot of land – which is relatively small
for Farmville – takes almost six hundred mouse-clicks to farm, and
obligates you to return in a few hours to do it again.
(Source: Cultivated Play by A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz, March 2010)

49. B = MAT
T (at the same A
moment)
l: Wake, Boredom (Waiting), A: Easy if at PC: Log into FB and
Anxiety (Loss of crops), Dopamine released click around in the farm
to encourage work
Loneliness (Nurturance)
towards REWARD M: High if tending to decaying
crop or if reciprocating by working
E: At PC, See app logo,
on coworker's farm
Update email, Invite or farm
activity on FB newsfeed
Endorphins released
to REWARD ACTION
C R
Build farm, Plant crops, Harvest Res: Tending, Winning items,
crops, Decorate farm, Pay for Buying items, Harvesting
items with credits or cash, Rel: Inviting, Receiving gifts,
Dopamine released
Invite others to see your farm, to encourage work Coworking (reciprocity)
Gift items to coworkers towards REWARD
Rep: Being added, Designing,
decorating, and arranging farm
Based on Desire Engine Canvas by NirAndFar.com

50. Farmville: Social Reciprocity in Coworkerville
● Silent together: People run out of things to say but still
want to appear sociable. Farmville allows passive and
asynchronous socializing through a 'game'.
● Social obligations: If you know your friends are visiting
your farm every day you'll spend more time and money
to keep it tidy (women are nesters). If your friends do
work on your farm, you feel you have to return the
favor, thus players are bound in loops of reciprocity.
● Sunk costs: The more time players invest, the more
they have to rationalize their investment, so they show
off by buying decorative and functional items.

51. PINTEREST

52. PINTEREST

53. United States top pins: crafts, gifts, hobbies/leisure,
interior design, and fashion designers/collections.
United Kingdom top pins: venture capital, blogging
resources, crafts, Web analytics, and SEO/marketing.
(Source: Ragan.com)
PINTEREST
3 average pins per user (80% of pins are repins)
(Source: RJMetrics, February 2012)
Average monthly use per visitor: 89 minutes
(Facebook: 405, Tumblr: 89, Twitter: 21, Google+: 3)
(Source: comScore, January 2012)

54. B = MAT
T (at the same A
moment)
I: Wake, Arrive/Leave A: Easy if at PC or on mobile:
Office/School/Home, Waiting, Dopamine released Just click 'Pin it' button or repin
to encourage work
Boredom, Anxiety, Loneliness M: High if you've found image
towards REWARD
E: At PC or on Mobile, See worthy of collecting (immediate
App icon/logo, Update email, See visibility and peer approval) and if
collectable image, See 'Pin it' button you fear losing that image
Endorphins released
to REWARD ACTION
C R
Create account, Create collection, Res: Finding, Pinning,
Organize collection, Browse user Organizing
collections, Share collection,
Dopamine released Rel: Added, Adding, Repined,
Repin images, Send invites,
to encourage work Repinning, Commenting
Install 'Pin it' button on site towards REWARD
Rep: Invited, Added, Repinned,
Commented
Based on Desire Engine Canvas by NirAndFar.com

55. Pinterest: Social Curation (Pin it or lose it)
● Social window shopping: When our personal tastes are
validated by others they get rewarded and reinforced.
We add value to images by contextualising them in
sets. Pinterest benefits through purchase intent data.
● No choice to make: We can be so crippled by too much
choice that we'd rather collect than consume.
● Curating the perfect catalogue: Pinning single images
probably isn't enough to gain attention, so users level
up by creating tastefully curated collections.

56. TWITTER
Image: @ngonews

57. TWITTER

58. 200 million tweets per day; retweets: 3–5%
(Sources: Twitter, June 2011; Tweet, Tweet, Retweet, danah boyd et al., 2010)
What makes you retweet?
Interesting content: 92%
Personal connection: 84%
Humor: 66%
Incentive: 32%
Retweet requests: 21%
TWITTER
Celebrity status: 26%
(Source: The Social Media Skinny, February 2012)
50% of users access Twitter via their cell phone
(Source: Customer Insight Group, February 2012)

59. B = MAT
T (at the same A
moment)
I: Waking, Waiting, Watching TV A: Easy to scroll through tweets,
Loneliness, Boredom, Dopamine released Easy to click 'Tweet This' or RT
to encourage work
Excitement/Anxiety (FOMO)
towards REWARD M: High if bored or waiting, High
E: At PC or on Mobile, See app if RTed, Replied, DMed, High if
icon/logo, Text or email notification thought of something to tweet
(RT, Mention, Reply, DM, Follow),
See a 'Tweet This' button
Endorphins released
to REWARD ACTION
C R
Scroll public tweets, Create account, Res: Finding good Tweet or link
Follow (Add friend), Tweet, RT, DM, Rel: Followed, Replied, DMed
View people 'Similar to you',
Favorite, View Trending Topics, Dopamine released Rep: Followed, RTed, Replied,
to encourage work Mentioned, Listed, Favorited
Design Profile, Add Mobile, towards REWARD
Click 'Tweet This', Install
'Tweet This' button on website
Based on Desire Engine Canvas by NirAndFar.com

60. Twitter – Global Village Gossip
● Twitter is McLuhan's "Tribal Drum": Tweets come from
everywhere-all-at-once creating an "acoustic space"
● Humans are hardwired for distractions (pro survival).
The average 13- to 17-year-old sends and receives
3,339 texts a month, more than 100 per day (Nielsen, 2010)
● We gossip to check the health of relationships in the
group and thereby find our place in the social hierarchy
● "Retribalized" global villagers; people feel safer in tribes
with a stable consensus (security > novelty). Celebrity
become idols of focused group attention and are
rewarded with adoration (followers and retweets).

61. Why is this happening?

62. Image: http://qkme.me/35ndf0

63. People Crave Feedback
● Compulsion Loops offer both users and the media
platform immediate feedback on their activities and this
feedback is available on any internet-connected device.
So long as this feedback is flowing, everyone is happy.
● Compulsion Loops resolve our conflicting needs for
both security and novelty by rewarding us for achieving
a sense of control over our environment by giving us
new things to control within that same environment
● Compulsion Loops foster loyalty and commitment
because they give us a sense of making progress.

64. Feeling in control with a sense of progress...
Image: http://bit.ly/KdFm8S

65. “The terrible truth is that a whole lot of us
begged for a Skinner Box we could crawl into,
because the real world's system of rewards is
so much more slow and cruel than we expected
it to be. The danger lies in the fact that these
games have become so incredibly efficient at
delivering the sense of accomplishment that
people used to get from their education or
career.”
— David Wong: 5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted

66. “Everything has been figured out,
except how to live.” — Jean-Paul Sartre

67. “We're altering internal states.” – Nicholas Carr: Hierarchy of Innovation
ty
No
uri
ve
c
Se
lty
Image: Nicholas Carr

68. “Environments are not passive
wrappings, but are, rather, active
processes which are invisible. The
ground rules, pervasive structure,
and overall patterns of environments
elude easy perception.”
— Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Massage

69. “Everything is number.”
— Pythagoras, Philosopher, ~570–495 BC

70. “People’s lives are being
run by stupid algorithms
more and more.”
— Jaron Lanier (Technologist and author of You Are
Not a Gadget)

71. “When we see ourselves
ranked, we're trained to
want to grow that score.”
— Joe Fernandez (Creator and founder of social
media analytics service Klout)

72. “... in a world of overwhelming
information and choice, people will
turn to their friends to help them decide
... that is what we have learned to do
through thousands of years of
evolution.”
— Paul Adams: The future of advertising: Many, lightweight
interactions over time

73. “People start asking
simpler questions so they
can get immediate
answers.”
— Sherry Turkle: Expecting More from Technology
and Less from Each Other

74. “Things have moved from:
‘I have a feeling, I want to make a
call to ‘I want to have a feeling,
I need to send a text.’”
— Sherry Turkle, Psychologist and author of Alone
Together

75. “Our culture, obsessed with numbers, has given
us the idea that what we can measure is more
important that what we can't measure. It
means that we make quantity more important
than quality. If quantity forms the goals of our
feedback loops, if quantity is the center of our
attention and language and institutions, if we
motivate ourselves, rate ourselves, and reward
ourselves on our ability to produce quantity,
then quantity will be the result.
— Donella H. Meadows: Thinking in Systems

76. Why are we telling you this?
Questions?

77. References
Slide 01: Karma whoring
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_whoring
Slide 09: InformationIsBeautiful - Chicks Rule?
http://bit.ly/L0OeKC
Slide 13: Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Medium_is_the_Massage
Slide 14: Facebook - Visualizing Friendships by Paul Butler
https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/visualizing-friendships/469716398919
Slide 14: Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Media
Slide 17: Jean-Paul Sartre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sartre

78. References
Slide 26: Lullaby Spring by Damien Hirst
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Hirst
Slide 32: Dopamine Jackpot! Sapolsky on the Science of Pleasure
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axrywDP9Ii0
Slide 33: Schedules of reinforcement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Schedules_of_reinforcement
Slide 34: How to Manufacture Desire: An Intro to the Desire Engine by Nir Eyal
http://www.nirandfar.com/2012/03/how-to-manufacture-desire.html
Slide 35: BJ Fogg's Behavior Model
http://behaviormodel.org/
Slide 36: Changing Behavior and Changing Policies: BJ Fogg
http://youtu.be/5WaToiunuWY

79. References
Slide 37: Cyworld
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyworld
Slide 38: O'Reilly Radar - A gaming revolution, minus the hype
http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/05/playful-design-gaming-revolution-john-ferrara.html
Slide 39: Filter bubble
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble
Slide 39: Marginal Utility - "Engagement Ads" on Facebook
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/131542-/
Slide 61: Agent Smith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_smith
Slide 65: Jean-Paul Sartre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sartre

80. References
Slide 66: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog - The hierarchy of innovation
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2012/05/the_hierarchy_o.php
Slide 67: Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Medium_is_the_Massage
Slide 68: Pythagoras
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras
Slide 69: Wired - What Your Klout Score Really Means by Seth Stevenson
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/04/ff_klout/
Slide 70: Wired - What Your Klout Score Really Means by Seth Stevenson
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/04/ff_klout/
Slide 71: THINK OUTSIDE IN - The future of advertising: Many, lightweight interactions over time
http://www.thinkoutsidein.com/blog/2012/03/many-lightweight-interactions-over-time/

81. References
Slide 72: Harvard Book Store Channel - Sherry Turkle (Video)
http://www.harvard.com/events/hbs_channel/sherry_turkle/
Slide 73: Confessions of an Aca/Fan - "Does This Technology Serve Human Purposes?": A
"Necessary Conversation" with Sherry Turkle (Part Three)
http://henryjenkins.org/2011/08/does_this_technology_serve_hum_1.html
Slide 74: Donella Meadows
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donella_Meadows