Hooked by Nir Eyal

Hooked: A Guide to Building Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal, explores how technology shapes user behavior by forming compulsions and habits. Eyal introduces the "Hook Model," a four-phase process—trigger, action, variable reward, and investment—that companies employ to engineer user engagement. The book emphasizes that habit-forming products address underlying psychological "itches" or discomforts, and that successful designs prioritize simplicity in action and offer variable rewards (from the tribe, hunt, and self) to maintain user interest. Ultimately, the work discusses how user investment in a product strengthens its value and how ethical considerations, as outlined in the Manipulation Matrix, should guide the creation of habit-forming technologies.