Hooked
by Nir Eyal
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Eyal maps the four-step loop, trigger, action, variable reward, investment, that makes products habit-forming. A practical blueprint for building (or recognising) addictive design.
- Published:
- Pages:
- 256
In the Conversation
In this collection, Hooked references 2 other books and is cited by 6 other books.
It draws on The Power of Habit and Thinking, Fast and Slow.
It’s picked up by Inspired, Empowered and Stolen Focus and 3 others.
Scroll down to read the exact passages where other authors reference this book and what they say about it.
What People Say
Hooked is widely recognised as the go-to framework for understanding habit-forming product design, and it attracts attention from both admirers and critics. James Clear cites Eyal's research in Atomic Habits, drawing parallels between how tech companies engineer user habits and how individuals can engineer their own, while Marty Cagan discusses the Hook Model in both Inspired and Empowered as essential product management knowledge. On the critical side, Johann Hari treats Hooked almost as an exhibit for the prosecution in Stolen Focus, arguing that big tech has weaponized Eyal's trigger-action-reward-investment loop to fragment attention.
Rand Fishkin applies it self-critically to his own startup in Lost and Founder. The book is valued for its clarity and practical framework, though readers increasingly wrestle with the ethical implications of designing for addiction.
What Hooked Draws On
2The books Eyal references and why each one mattered to the argument.
Eyal's Hook Model is built on Duhigg's habit loop research. Where Duhigg explains how habits form naturally, Eyal reverse-engineers the process to show how products can deliberately create habitual behaviour.
Eyal references Kahneman's System 1 for habit-forming products.
What Other Authors Say About It
6The exact passages where other authors bring up “Hooked” and what they take from it.
Cagan discusses Eyal's Hook Model.
Cagan builds on his earlier work with Eyal's Hook Model concepts.
Hari engages Nir Eyal's Hooked directly, treating its hook model as a blueprint for the engagement techniques that he argues big-tech companies weaponize to fragment attention.
Builds on Eyal's Hooked on habit-forming product design, applying it self-critically to Moz's tools and content to explain why some features stuck and others didn't
The book references Nir Eyal's Hooked model when discussing how psychological principles like variable rewards and the Zeigarnik Effect can be applied ethically in product design
Clear acknowledges Nir Eyal's Hooked alongside Duhigg as a major influence: "Charles Duhigg and Nir Eyal deserve special recognition for their influence on this image. This representation of the habit loop is a combination of language popularized by Duhigg's book and a design popularized by Eyal's book, Hooked."
Chapter 3 (notes)
Intellectual Lineage
How ideas flow through the citation network. Ancestors are books this title builds on; descendants are books that build on it.
Builds on (2 layers deep)
Directly cites
Influenced (2 layers deep)
Directly cited by
Unexpected Connections
Books from completely different categories that share citation overlap with this one. These are the reads you would not find by browsing a single shelf.
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Books with the highest citation overlap within the same categories.
Citation Network
This book and its direct connections. Hover a node to see its title, click to visit.
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Hover a node to highlight its connections. Click to open the book page. Node size reflects total citation links.