Every app keeps count of things. A video app counts how long you stay, how many videos you watch, and how many times a day you open it. It does not count whether you learned something or felt better. Those are hard to measure. Minutes are easy.
More minutes→More ads shown→More money
Why minutes? Because minutes are what it sells. More minutes means more ads shown, and more ads means more money. So the whole app is built to make one number bigger: the time people spend on it. People in the business call that number engagement. It just means how much you use the app.
How long you stayed
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Whether you were glad
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Whether it was true
Which of these does the app count?
Whether you were glad you opened it.
Not yet. No sensor on a phone can tell if you were glad. What it can tell is that you stayed, and it takes staying as a yes.
Whether what you watched was true.
Not yet. Checking truth needs a person to read the claim. Counting minutes needs nothing, so minutes are what gets counted.
How many minutes you stayed.
Right. Minutes are counted to the second, on every phone, every day. It is the number the whole business is measured by.
An hour you enjoyed60 minutes counted
An hour you regretted60 minutes counted
Here is the odd part. A video you loved and a video you could not stop watching both count the same: minutes. If you scrolled for an hour and felt worse after, the app counts a great hour. The number cannot tell the difference, and the number is what gets chased.
Move the control to set how many times a day you open the app. Each open lasts six minutes here, which is a made-up round number.
Minutes on the app each day12 minutes
One school lesson, for size50 minutes
2 opens a day2 opens of six minutes is 12 minutes a day. Over a week that is about 1.4 hours.
Minutes on the app each day30 minutes
One school lesson, for size50 minutes
5 opens a day5 opens of six minutes is 30 minutes a day. Over a week that is about 3.5 hours.
Minutes on the app each day60 minutes
One school lesson, for size50 minutes
10 opens a day10 opens of six minutes is 60 minutes a day. Over a week that is about 7 hours.
Minutes on the app each day120 minutes
One school lesson, for size50 minutes
20 opens a day20 opens of six minutes is 120 minutes a day. Over a week that is about 14 hours.
Minutes on the app each day240 minutes
One school lesson, for size50 minutes
40 opens a day40 opens of six minutes is 240 minutes a day. Over a week that is about 28 hours.
Opening the app twice as often, for the same six minutes each time, does what to the minutes?
Halves them. Short visits are short.
Not yet. Each visit is short, but there are more of them. More visits of the same length is more minutes, not fewer.
Doubles them. Twenty short visits add up like one long one.
Right. Forty opens of six minutes is four hours. Nobody sits down for four hours; it arrives in bits, and the count is the same.
Nothing. Only long sessions count.
Not yet. The count is minutes, however they arrive. Six minutes twenty times is counted exactly like one two-hour sitting.
Move the control.
Checks a day, one surveyabout 100
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Most checks lastunder a minute
Real numbers. In one survey, people said they checked their phone about 100 times a day. Other surveys find more. Most checks last under a minute. The app does not need you for an hour at a time. It needs you back, again and again, all day.
How long does the average person spend on the internet on their phone each day, across all apps, in worldwide surveys from 2024?
Pick one. Nothing is scored.
On the phone4 hours a day
Awake16 hours a day
About 4 hours.Guesses run low because nobody feels four hours going by; it arrives as a hundred small checks. Four hours is about a quarter of the time a person is awake. On the rule from lesson one, it is about 60 ad slots a day.
Which of these does the app's number count, and which can it not see?
One card at a time. Tap the pile it belongs to.
Card 1 of 6
You watched a 30-second video twice.
You laughed out loud.
You opened the app 14 times today.
You felt worse after an hour of scrolling.
You sent a video to a friend.
You learned how to fix a puncture.
You watched a 30-second video twice. → Counted
Not yet. Counted. Every second a video plays is a second on the app's clock, and a rewatch counts twice.
You laughed out loud. → Cannot be seen
Not yet. Cannot be seen. The phone has no way to know a laugh happened, only that the video kept playing.
You opened the app 14 times today. → Counted
Not yet. Counted. Each open is logged with the time. How often you come back is one of the app's favourite numbers.
You felt worse after an hour of scrolling. → Cannot be seen
Not yet. Cannot be seen. An hour of scrolling looks like a great hour on the clock, whichever way you felt at the end.
You sent a video to a friend. → Counted
Not yet. Counted. A share is a tap, and every tap is logged. Shares are counted extra carefully because they bring another person in.
You learned how to fix a puncture. → Cannot be seen
Not yet. Cannot be seen. What went into your head leaves no trace in the app; only the minutes the video ran do.
Taps and secondscounted
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What it did to youunseen
Right. Anything that is a tap or a second on the clock is counted. Anything that happens inside you is not. The app steers by the first list, because that is all it can see.
One readerone open, ten minutes
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The otherten opens, a minute each
A news app is free and paid for by ads. One reader reads a whole story in ten minutes. Another opens the app ten times a day and skims for a minute each time. By the app's own number, which reader is worth more?
The careful reader. Reading a whole story is what a news app is for.
Not yet. It may be what the app is for, but it is not what the app counts. One open, one screen, one ad. The clock cannot see how carefully anyone read.
Equal. Ten minutes is ten minutes.
Not yet. The minutes match, but ad slots do not. An ad is shown when a screen opens, and one reader opened ten screens to the other's one.
The skimmer. Ten opens means ten fresh screens, and every fresh screen is a place for an ad.
Right. Both spend about ten minutes, but an ad is shown when a screen loads, and the skimmer loads ten. The number rewards coming back, not reading well.
Lesson complete
The app counts how long you stay and how often you come back, because that is what it sells.