Our last post reported on the perfect nudge: "Freedom" - a program designed to help you nudge yourself to keep away from the internet, when you have better things to do.
Now we came across another self-commitment Nudge based on ET (everyday-technologies): OKITE - the nudge app to get your out of bed in the morning.
So how does it work?
The OKITE is a social nudge that provides a simple self-commitment mechanism: it's an alarm-clock app that sends an embarrassing 'tweet' to all your 'followers' whenever you hit the snooze button.
We think the idea is especially brilliant, since it numbs some of the ethical problems inherent in any social nudge by being a self-commitment device. We also conjecture that it would work even better, if it could be made to post embarrassing pictures of you on your social sites.
Extensions?
Most interestingly, perhaps, we think that this kind of nudge could be extended to several other lapses of our capacity to follow up on your plans. For instance, an app could be designed to send out embarrasing pictures or messages if you exceeded a self-imposed limit on your credit card, or used this in a particular shop.
But what about other extensions or unintended consequences? If you can think of such, please share it with us in the comments.
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