I had just dropped my daughter off at school this morning. As I waited at a traffic light a woman was making a left turn heading in my direction. I noticed she rolled down her window despite the rain that was falling. Immediately my mind went to “She’s smoking.” I was right. Next I went to the inevitable “She is going to toss that cigarette butt into the middle of the road” because in her nicotine choked mind that is not littering, She did.

In last week’s Search Insider, I introduced the idea of habits, and why they can be hard things to break. This week, I want to explore how search engines can be habit-forming as well.

Cognitive Lock-In