Numerous methods have been devised over the years to counter the surge of Facebook overuse. However, nearly none has proved fruitful. Now, two students at MIT have come up with ‘Pavlov Poke,’ a genius invention. It essentially gives you electric shocks if you are found wasting a lot of time at one site.
Robert Morris and Dan McDuff came up with the idea when they realized that a lot of their precious time was being spent using Facebook. The duo are PhD students at MIT and so, spending 50 hours a week on Facebook was simply not a viable option for them.
So they created ‘Pavlov Poke’ which can shock you back to sanity if you indulge too much in a given site or application. The tool is hooked up to the keyboard and keeps track of your online browsing activity, so that it can decide when you are over-doing it.
According to McDuff, “It monitors application usage, and if you spend too much time on a particular Web site or application, it will give you a shock.” While the solution certainly sounds very interesting to us, Pavlov Poke will not be commercially produced and even its creators may abandon it soon.
In the words of Morris, “To be truly effective, many shock exposures are probably needed. Proper conditioning procedures should be followed. Sadly, we found the shocks so aversive, we removed the device pretty quickly after installing it. Anecdotally, however, I did notice a significant, though temporary, reduction in my Facebook usage.”
Courtesy: CNET
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