Colophon
A book about engineered attention has no business running an engineered-attention website. So here is what I have tried to do instead.
You get the result before I ask for anything. The tools here hand you the answer and let you leave. Where I do ask for an email — to tell you the book is out — it is on its own page, clearly labelled, and skipping it costs you nothing.
Every tool tells you where your answers go. Most of what is here runs on your own device and saves to local storage, with no account and no database. Anything that needs something else says so on the page, before you start typing.
I have tried to leave out the engagement machinery. No infinite scroll, no autoplay, no streaks or badges, no invented reason to come back tomorrow. If something here ever starts measuring your return visits, I have drifted.
And the dark patterns. Nothing should be harder to cancel than it was to start, and you will not find countdown timers, manufactured scarcity, or a “no thanks, I prefer being manipulated” button.
Tools should name their own mechanism. A score on its own is entertainment. If something here tells you about yourself, it ought to also tell you which lever it used and who else uses it on you.
I will get some of this wrong. The argument of the book is that environments shape behaviour and the people who build them are answerable for what they build. That applies to this one, so if you catch me at it, say so.