Guilty Pleasure Recommendations
Guilty Pleasure Recommendations offer personalized suggestions to keep users engaged on a platform. These recommendations are often based on the user’s past interactions or the preferences of similar users. However, it is difficult for users to disable or customize these recommendations without the use of third-party tools. These suggestions can also be harmful when they do not align with the user’s goals and values, leading to feelings of guilt or shame after interacting with the content suggested by the platform.
Example: Facebook
Social media platforms like Facebook often provide their users with clickbait suggestions, thus increasing compulsiveness in their long-term usage. These networks can recommend different kinds of content, from friends to follow to games and trending topics. In some cases, these recommendations are also deliberately disguised in the users’ newsfeeds (see the Disguised Ads & Recommendations pattern). These platforms also place recommendation-based features close to features that are used more actively, such as the search bar, which makes getting sidetracked easier.