3BI: designing for disorder, increasing reading, and reducing screen time
Welcome to my 3BI newsletter, where I share three insights from the world of behavioral science on psychology, decision-making, and behavioral change.
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Design can reduce disorder
In recent years, the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) system faced a problem of increasing vandalism and disorder. The most obvious solution to such issues would be to increase security and law enforcement, but that’s a big expense for tight budgets. Instead, the agency found a simple change in design that was much more impactful. From The Atlantic:
In August, BART completed the installation of new fare gates at station entrances and exits: Six-foot-tall saloon-style doors, made of plexiglass with metal frames, have replaced the waist-high barriers of the 1970s that were easy to duck or jump. The new gates have compelled more riders to pay their fare—revenue is projected to rise by $10 million a year. They have also led to an enormous drop in vandalism. Workers spent nearly 1,000 fewer hours cleaning up after unruly passengers in the six months following the gates’ installation, compared with the six months before. Crime on BART fell by 41 percent last year. Most fare beaters may be just trying to get a free ride, but most of the vandalism was apparently committed by fare beaters.
This is a great example of how simple and inexpensive changes in our environment can solve problems in surprising ways:
This is a success story with lessons for all types of public spaces. Call it “fare-gate theory”: To protect the shared rooms of communal life, human intervention isn’t always necessary, affordable, or desirable. Instead, physical and technological obstacles—an architecture of good behavior—can keep out bad actors and deter the worst impulses of everyone else.
Removing phones increases reading
Reading has fallen drastically this century, especially among young people. School districts in Texas have found a simple and seemingly obvious way to reverse this trend:
Public school districts in Texas are almost one school year into the first statewide cellphone ban, and a North Texas school district is seeing positive impacts.
Dallas ISD officials said that, district-wide, they have seen a significant increase in library book checkouts, which they largely attribute to students no longer having cellphones with them during the school day.
…
From the first day of school to March 31, 2026, the district reported an increase of more than 200,000 additional books checked out compared to the previous year.
A look at the library checkouts for the previous year:
2025-2026 Total Circulation (1st day of school to March 31, 2026) – 1,084,837
2024-2025 Total circulation (1st day of school to March 31, 2025) – 872,430
Total library book checkout increase: 24.35%
At Dallas ISD’s Hillcrest High, students are following this trend.
Canales said there were roughly 500 books checked out in the first nine weeks of the 2024-2025 school year. This school year, that number spiked to about 1,800 books.
Those are pretty significant improvements! Without phones, students lack instant access to entertainment and are forced to find something else to keep them occupied:
“I started hearing, ‘Oh, I’m so bored. I can’t get on my phone after I do my work or during lunchtime,’” Hillcrest High School librarian Nina Canales said. “Once they lock into these stories, they don’t seem to care about their phones at all.”
We’ve been swapping books for screen time due to the instant gratification phones provide. The more we remove digital devices from the equation, the more we gravitate towards books and other more enriching activities.
Three steps to reducing screen time
Unfortunately, most of us don’t really have the option of fully “banning” phones from our days, but there are other ways we can curb overusage. Harvard professor Arthur C. Brooks has three steps to curbing device addiction based on neuroscience:
Tech-free times - Fixed times of the day where we cut off access from phones and other devices. Brooks recommends making the first hour of the morning, meal times, and the last hour of night device free.
Tech-free zones - Having set physical areas that are kept device free. Brooks recommends the bedroom and classroom or office.
Tech fasts - Taking extended periods of time without access to any devices. Brooks talks about taking actual retreats and trips that are device free, but even just choosing an afternoon, evening, or day without digital distractions can help refresh our mind.
I like these strategies because they set simple rules, routines, and habits rather than try to fight constant battles of willpower.
Other stuff
If America’s So Rich, How’d It Get So Sad? - “Something significant has bludgeoned Americans’ well-being in the last six years without discriminating much by age, ideology, education, or gender. What is it?”
People Are Paying $1,000 to Read Among Strangers - “Over the past few years, reading retreats — where groups of (mostly) women gather at a country house or hotel to work through their personal reading lists in amiable silence — have sprung up across the US and the UK.”