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The true potential of technology to change behavior
Technology could successfully change behaviours where decades of campaigns and legislation have failed.
With the quantified self already walking among us and the internet of things within easy reach, digital technology
is creating unprecedented opportunities to encourage, enable and empower more sustainable behaviours.
If we are to unlock the power of technology we must be more ambitious than simply digitising analogue
strategies or creating another communications channel.
The true potential of technology lies in its ability to do things that nothing else can do. In behaviour change
terms, the potential to succeed where decades of education programmes, awareness campaigns and product
innovation have failed; to make a difference where government policy and legislation has had limited impact.
Using behavioural insights, it is possible to highlight the bottlenecks, drop out points and achilles heels of
traditional behaviour change efforts — the reasons why we have failed in the past — and apply the unique
possibilities of technology to these specific challenges.
Overcoming our limitations
Luckily, the history of the human race is almost defined by its ability to invent stuff that bolsters its feeble
capabilities. That stuff is, of course, what we generically refer to as 'technology'. And in the same way that the
internal combustion engine and the light bulb allow us to overcome our relatively feeble powers of motion and
perception, so digital technology can be directed to overcoming our relatively feeble powers of reasoning, selfcontrol, motivation, self-awareness and agency—the factors that make behaviour change so difficult.
Herein lies the true potential of technology: not in the laboratory or the workshop, but in an understanding of
the behavioural dynamics that define the human condition, both generally and within the context of a specific
user-group, market segment or community.
Fonte: JOHNSON, Steven. Recognising the true potential of technology to change behaviour. Disponível em: