Take Back Control and Make Better Decisions Online
Have you ever stopped to consider how many hours you spend in front of a computer screen each day? Or how such prolonged computer interaction deeply influences us, especially in subconscious ways?
Most of us may be just too busy to be aware of the visual biases and behavioral patterns that influence us while we absorb and process information on a screen – hour after hour, after day, after week, and so on. The most sophisticated marketers strategically design their content and Calls To Action, and know exactly how to design a web page that leads us to make the decisions they want us to make.
Businesses can influence customers—for better or for worse—by something as simple as how their web or mobile sites are designed, where information is placed, the colors and white space used, and how products are described. Some companies that do this well, while others do it less so well (Amazon is one of the worst!)
Online vs. Offline Decisions
You may be surprised to learn that the choices, decisions and purchases you make online can be very different from the choices you would make offline. Those strategically planned online influences often lead us to make decisions that we might not make offline – even if they are ultimately expensive or harmful.
For instance:
- You’re more likely to add bacon to a pizza order if you’re online.
- You will probably get lower scores if you take the SAT on a computer.
- You might buy an item located on a screen ‘hotspot’, even if better options are available.
- You’ll probably overvalue a product you’re considering, if you shop using a touchscreen.
You Can Consciously Make Better Decisions Online
“I have devoted my career to studying the mistakes people make so that we might learn to avoid them.” In his latest game-changing book, Shlomo Benartzi, behavioral economist and UCLA professor, researched and recently published, The Smarter Screen: Surprising Ways to Influence and Improve Online Behavior
His mission is to help individuals make better decisions online.
Benartzi writes about the many ways our brains process information differently on a screen versus in real life, and the impact these differences can have on our buying habits, health, financial planning, and more.
Benefits of THE SMARTER SCREEN
“This book is about how we think on screens” Benartzi summarizes. It’s a book about behavioral solutions and practical tools that can improve our digital lives. Using stories and case studies, we learn how profoundly we are affected, and even further, how to anticipate the marketers’ and designers’ intent.
Benartzi offers specific tools for triggering behavioral attention on screens. We learn how webpage design can make us smarter. And think better – in order to empower our own actions and succumb less to the intended manipulation.
Can THE SMARTER SCREEN initiate meaningful, sustainable change?
Possible Scope of Change – a Billion People?
“… My hope is that we can use the scale of technology to bring more fixes to more people …. using the reach of the digital world to quickly contact vast numbers of people with minimal effort” offers Benartzi. “In fact, influencing behavior on screens can be so efficient and effective that I believe we have a chance to help a billion people think smarter and choose wiser. That’s right: billion. With a b.”
The end result is that we need to update our behavioral toolkit for the digital age. This book will give you the tools you need now, at least if you want to nudge people the right way on screens.
It’s Time Has Arrived
It’s high time that consumers, business workers and the public in general become aware of these powerful and largely manipulative influences in order to make decisions in our own best interest, whether individual or business.
It’s time to raise our awareness, our consciousness, and think more independently on-screen.
About the Shlomo Benartzi:
SHLOMO BENARTZI is a professor and co-chair of the Behavioral Decision-Making Group at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. He is the author of Save More Tomorrow: Practical Behavioral Finance Solutions to Improve 401(k) Plans
and Thinking Smarter: Seven Steps to Your Fulfilling Retirement…and Life
. He has extensive experience applying behavioral economic insights to the real world, having increased the savings rates of millions of Americans through his work with Richard Thaler on Save More Tomorrow, and has advised many government agencies and businesses.
For More Information, contact:
Angela Baggetta
Managing Director
Goldberg McDuffie Communications
250 Park Ave., 7th Floor
New York, NY 10177
Phone: 212-705-4221 / Twitter: @angelabaggetta / Web: www.goldbergmcduffie.com