Book review: The Smarter Screen: Surprising Ways to Influence and Improve Online Behavior by Shlomo Benartzi and Jonah Lehrer

The most suffocating part about my previous job – and I understood this quite recently – is the fact that it suffocated my reading. The inspiration and the motivation for enlightenment have gone for a long walk… I switched to fiction. I love fiction, don’t get me wrong, but what I love even more is a book that makes me discover things and makes me crave for more knowledge.

 I am thrilled to say that The Smarter Screen: Surprising Ways to Influence and Improve Online Behavior by Shlomo Benartzi and Jonah Lehrer reminded me about the things that I was missing.

Few of us are aware of the visual biases and behavioral patterns that influence our thinking when we’re on our laptops, iPads, smartphones, or smartwatches. The sheer volume of information and choices available online, combined with the ease of tapping “buy,” often make for poor decision making on screens. Using engaging reader exercises and provocative case studies, Benartzi shows how digital designs can influence our decision making on screens in all sorts of surprising ways.

Manufacturing desire: Branding Style from Armani to Zara

‘… fashion is based on creating a need where, in reality there is none. Fashion is a factory that manufactures desire,’ Bruno Remaury.

Books on fashion and luxury are oftentimes not easy to find, especially when you’re a cash-strapped student aspiring to make it in a mythical industry that for an newcomer looks like an array of closed doors. Here’s a brief review to one of the most comprehensive guides to the basics of fashion marketing Mark Tungate’s ‘Fashion Brands: Branding Style from Armani to Zara’.