What is 'human fracking'?

You may or may not have come across this principle before, but the chances are you’re a victim of it. Human fracking describes the way in which Big Tech companies treat our attention spans: as a resource, to be mined and monetised.

So, what does human fracking look like in the context of financial services, and how do digital banking apps and investment platforms can gamify user experiences to drive engagement and product sales?

Social media: The influencer-in-chief

Ever since the early noughties, a series of technologies have successfully harnessed our attention spans to drive engagement. Facebook is the primary and most powerful example, which leverages its deep pool of data to personalise users’ feeds, prioritise relevant content, boost conversation-sparking posts, and deploy various content forms to keep audiences on the platform. Naturally, this appeals to advertisers, who want to know their copy is being shown to highly engaged, targeted audiences. Attention equals advertising revenue.

The power of the algorithm has been wielded by newer social media platforms, too. By reducing video content to, on average, 15 second clips, Tik Tok has supercharged engagement at the expense of its users’ attention spans. This is a highly successful business model, and the reach of social media platforms has outpaced some of our most established, traditional outlets. According to The Guardian, “nearly 70% of the human population of Earth currently possesses a smartphone, and these devices constitute about 95% of internet access-points on the planet.” Globally, it seems that people spend, on average, half of their waking hours looking at screens.

By treating personhood as a resource, Big Tech creates what the Friends of Attention coalition has dubbed, Homo attentus – the end-user of every networked system.

The gamification of financial services

The principle of human fracking is no longer limited to social media. By introducing elements like gamification, some financial firms have discovered their own way to mine for our attention – and monetise it.

Take, for example, digital challenger banks like Monzo. Its users will be familiar with several in-app experiences that increase the amount of time they spend on the platform. There are, for instance, savings pots with visual goals; spending challenges, such as saving on takeaways; coin-jar roundups; personalised insights, like the Year in Monzo; as well as other social features such as emoji reactions and shared tabs. These features transform everyday banking into an engaging, goal-oriented experience that greatly appeals to young audiences.

While this may sound benign, the same principles applied to investment platforms, for example, can lead to risky financial habits and even an uptick in cross-selling success. Investment platforms with sleek, mobile-first, or beginner-friendly user experiences – which deploy features like confetti, emojis, push-notifications, and colour-coded market statuses – tend to reel in novice investors and support impulsive trades. The experience can be likened to that of betting apps, which often results in irresponsible bets.

The regulators say…

While the techniques of human fracking are more closely regulated in the world of financial services than social media, the risks are higher. This is because the resource extracted by Big Tech is engagement, whereas the resource extracted by financial apps is, ultimately, end-users’ cash.

Fortunately, there are rules that indirectly protect financial services consumers from this kind of exploitation. In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)’s Consumer Duty act of July 2023 compels firms to design and test their services to ensure they are meeting existing consumer needs. The act also ensures customers are given the chance to make timely, properly informed decisions about financial products and services.

Following the introduction of Consumer Duty, the FCA continued to signal its dedication to the issue of gamification, and in 2024 built a test trading platform to examine how digital engagement practices (DEPs) can increase risky behaviour. The FCA then explicitly warned trading app providers about game-like design features that may encourage excessive trading or gambling-like behaviour.

Alongside these efforts, the regulator has strengthened rules on financial promotions for high-risk investments (such as crypto) and banned certain incentives – mandating cooling-off periods and explicit risk warnings.

Building a dedicated framework

Though a number of regulations globally touch on outcomes driven by human fracking, the risks are likely to rise in the mid-term. As an increasing number of institutions work to get ahead of the impending wealth transfer by meeting the demands of Gen Z and Gen Alpha – and deliver experiences akin to social media – gamification tactics will   come to the fore. Consumers and regulators alike must stay aware of the signals and be conscientious about how and when attention spans are being mined.

Sooner than later, the financial services industry will need to come up with a dedicated framework to answer this new phenomenon, with a non-piecemeal, united regulatory front.