Technology
An AI program can learn from smartphone users’ behaviours in order to send timely pop-up reminders about when to close attention-grabbing apps. The system effectively reduced how often people opened apps such as TikTok
By Jeremy Hsu
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It’s hard to tear your attention away from your smartphone
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Apps such as Instagram and TikTok keep us glued to our smartphones by design. An artificial intelligence system that reminds us to take breaks can help slash that screen time.
A random notification to stop doomscrolling won’t always tear someone away from their phone. But machine learning can personalise that intervention so it arrives at the moment when it is most likely to work, says Xuhai Xu at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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