Hooked by Nir Eyal

Nir Eyal, the author of Hooked, talks about how we’ve become slaves to our smartphones, the most popular gadget in the world. He explains how companies like Apple and Facebook mess with our minds and shares how we can break free from it.

Book in Five Sentences

1. Build a Habit, Not Just a Product: When you create something that people can use repeatedly, they will keep coming back. For example, Instagram isn’t just an app; it’s a habit. Every time you scroll, you feel like you’re missing out, so you keep coming back for more.
2. Keep It Simple: The more steps people have to take to use your product, the less likely they are to use it. Think about Facebook—it’s so simple to log in and scroll through your feed, that you don’t think twice about it.
3. Unpredictability is Key: When users don’t know what they’re going to get, they’ll keep checking to see what happens next. For example, when you post something on social media, you don’t know who will like it, and that makes you check again and again.
4. Make Users Invest: When people put in time or effort into something, they are more likely to keep using it. Think about how you keep watching shows on Netflix. The more shows you watch, the better it gets at recommending new ones for you.
5. Encourage Social Sharing: People love to share things with others. If you make it easy for them to share your product or content, they’ll do it without thinking. TikTok made it simple to share videos, which helped it grow fast.

Hooked Summary

This book focuses a lot on business and how companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, and even Apple make us addicted to their products. Even though we know that scrolling through Instagram Reels for hours won’t add any real value to our lives, we still open the app again and again.

Social media is free to use, but behind the scenes, they’re making billions from us. Nir Eyal shares plenty of examples that will open your eyes to how we’re slowly becoming slaves to social media.

Before diving into the book, here are a few key questions to ask yourself if you truly want to build a successful business:

• What do users really want? What pain does your product solve? (Internal trigger)
• What brings users to your service? (External trigger)
• What’s the simplest action users take to get a reward, and how can you make it even easier? (Action)
• Are users satisfied with the reward but still curious for more? (Variable reward)
• What “small effort” do users put into your product? Does it create a loop by setting up the next use and improving over time? (Investment)

So sit somewhere and think about these questions and implement this into your business, if you’re running any.

Products and Habits

We all know what the Apple Ecosystem is.

If someone has been using an iPhone for years, chances are they also have AirPods, a MacBook, an iPad, and other accessories made by Apple. Why? Because Apple makes all its devices work seamlessly together.

As a result, users who are deep into the Apple Ecosystem often don’t consider buying products from brands like Samsung or Google.

If we dive deeper, Apple even has an app called iMessage, which is a big deal in the USA. Meanwhile, in India, most people use Android since iPhones are much more expensive there compared to the USA.

So, Apple connects everything in such a way that it keeps you within their ecosystem, making it less likely for you to switch to other brands.

The same strategy applies to Facebook. They own WhatsApp, which is hugely popular in Asian countries, Instagram, which is used by almost everyone, and Facebook itself, which still has an active user base.

In short, these companies create habits. Once you step into their ecosystem a couple of times, it becomes hard to step out. Not impossible, but definitely hard.

Rewards You Can’t Say No To

Whether you’ve noticed it or not, vertical videos are everywhere.

It all started with TikTok. Then Instagram introduced Reels, and eventually, YouTube joined the trend with YouTube Shorts.

Earlier, if you wanted to watch videos, you’d search for them on YouTube or subscribe to a channel. In short, you decided what to watch.

Now, with vertical short videos, the choice isn’t entirely yours. Algorithms decide what kind of videos you’ll enjoy, and you keep scrolling until you find one you like. Then the same cycle repeats, over and over again.

This is exactly why I don’t consume vertical short videos—I create them for others instead.

The reality is, you’ll spend 5 minutes scrolling to find a 30-second video. And then you’ll do it again. If you repeat this five or six times, your mind will turn it into a habit.

Questions to Ask to Yourself

Everything sounds simple, right? Just stop scrolling. But we all know—it’s not that easy.

Let me ask you a few questions, and make sure you answer them honestly:

• Is the product I’m using actually making a difference in my life?
• Do I really need this product?

Now, let’s take an example. Suppose you’re watching p*rn.

Ask yourself: Is watching p*rn making a difference in my life?

Then, consider your smartphone. Ask yourself: Does using a smartphone make any difference in my life?

The thing is, a smartphone can be used for creating content for YouTube or Instagram, managing office work, or even for entertainment.

Similarly, watching p*rn on your smartphone isn’t inherently bad. But watching it every day can turn into a habit, and that’s where the problem begins—it becomes harder to stop.

The key takeaway: You need to decide what’s good and what’s bad, and most importantly, how much of it is okay to consume.

Hooked by Nir Eyal Review

Hooked Quotes

“Habit-forming products often start as nice-to-haves (vitamins) but once the habit is formed, they become must-haves (painkillers).”

“Companies who form strong user habits enjoy several benefits to their bottom line.”

“Users who continually find value in a product are more likely to tell their friends about it.”

“Buffett and his partner, Charlie Munger, realized that as customers form routines around a product, they come to depend upon it and become less sensitive to price.”

“Habit-forming products often start as nice-to-haves (vitamins) but once the habit is formed, they become must-haves (painkillers).”

“The study demonstrated that people suffering from symptoms of depression used the Internet more. Why is that? One hypothesis is that those with depression experience negative emotions more frequently than the general population and seek relief by turning to technology to lift their mood.”

“A habit is when not doing an action causes a bit of pain. It”

“The Hook Model is designed to connect the user’s problem with the designer’s solution frequently enough to form a habit. It is a framework for building products that solve user needs through long-term engagement.”

“Reducing the thinking required to take the next action increases the likelihood of the desired behavior occurring unconsciously.”

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