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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:<https://www.theguardian.com/sustainablebusiness/behavioural-insights/true-potential-technology-change-behaviour> . Acesso em: 23 ago. 2017. (Adaptado).