When I watched this “60 Minutes” report on how major technology companies are using their knowledge of brain science to try to keep us staring at our phones as often as possible, it made me cringe. They are trying to cause us to be addicted to our phones and the applications we use on them.

But it makes sense. When you use most consumer-oriented software applications, you aren’t the customer. The customer is the advertiser, and you are the audience. They want your to be looking at your screen, and therefore their ads, as often and for as long as possible. So the smart people who understand brain science and the dopamine rush you get when you check your phone and see “Likes” on your posts, or texts sent with lasers, are trying to keep you connected at all times. The more time you spend on their applications, the more money they make from the advertisers hoping to sell you things.

When you use Schedulefly, you are the customer. We don’t have advertisers, and we never will. We don’t want you to be on Schedulefly all of the time. Rather, we hope it’s a quick, easy tool that sits in the background of both your phone and your mind. It’s there to do it’s job and make it fast and easy for you to do what you need to do, and then get out of the way. We don’t want managers’ “eyeball time” to increase over time, we hope it decreases. We hope we make restaurant scheduling take very little time so they can focus on personal interactions with their staff. We don’t want staff to check Schedulefly constantly so we can “deepen user engagement.” We hope they get what they need quickly so they can get on with life and have time to do the things they enjoy outside of work.

We don’t have any brain science experts on our team, working to use your brain chemistry to alter your behavior. We’re just a small team of five folks who hope we make life easier for you. That has always been the case and it always will be.

Wil