Can We Have Our Attention Please? Towards a Pharmacology of Persuasive Technology

Behaviour design has become an invaluable resource to influence individuals and
large populations with the help of technology. In pursuit of B.J. Fogg's seminal
approach, persuasive technologies are now widely deployed in both the public and
corporate sector. They have also been received as a viable middle ground solution to many issues concerning the governing of human behaviour.
Yet when it becomes established in a computational capitalist society, despite its
supposed moral neutrality, behaviour design reveals a range of philosophical and
ethical challenges about freedom, power and care. In order to take on these
challenges and to initiate a more critical discussion about the use of technology in the attention economy, this article looks into persuasive technology from a Stieglerian point of view.
Applied to Stiegler's conceptual framework, I argue that any transformation of human consciousness by persuasive technologies embodies the very socio-technological conditions that produce them; that such a condition is pharmacological by nature and that the curative possibilities of this pharmacology are becoming increasingly difficult to achieve. In order to counter any crippling effects of persuasive technologies on our cultural and mental lives, I conclude by proposing some initial steps towards a 'therapeutic' solution.