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Attention Traps

What is Nagging Prompts?

Apps repeatedly interrupt normal use with requests to enable notifications, share data, or leave a rating. The repetition is the strategy: eventually agreeing feels easier than declining again.

Where it comes from

Mobile App Growth Teams (2010s)

How it hooks you

Exploits attrition: each repeated prompt wears down resistance a little more, and the app can ask indefinitely.

What the research shows

Dark-pattern taxonomies classify nagging as its own category because repeated prompts measurably erode autonomous choice.

Source: Gray et al., 'The Dark (Patterns) Side of UX Design' (2018)

How to resist it

Choose 'Don't ask again' wherever it is offered, and revoke permissions at the OS level so the app cannot keep asking.

Where you’ll run into it

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