'sludge' is an obstacle to freedom.

Sludge consists of frictions

that separate us from something we want.

When there's waiting time, paperwork requirements,

some confusing process that you can't navigate-

that's sludge.

It's like a kind of gooey, viscous substance

in which your feet are stuck and you can't get out.

If you're dealing with a criminal justice system

it's especially severe,

but if you're dealing with a hospital or your employer,

your school, your government or company,

it can also be really bad.

And it's not merely frustrating;

it's treating you without dignity.

The question is: What are we gonna do about it?

Sludge reduction can produce big dividends.

My name is Cass Sunstein.

I teach at Harvard Law school.

I have a new book, it's called "Sludge,"

and it's about what makes it hard for us

to get where we're trying to go.

Sludge can be good when it is ensuring

that people aren't reckless or impulsive.

For example, if you need to get a driver's license

you will encounter some sludge.

It's justified.

You shouldn't get a driver's license

just because you want one.

It's a matter of health and safety.

Sludge can also be good

when it's a way of ensuring that

the people who are seeking benefits

are actually entitled to them.

So to impose a little bit of sludge

to make sure that those who are trying to get something

from the government or company

actually have a right to that thing,

that's 'okay sludge.'

Sludge is bad when it makes navigation really hard

between a human being

and something that can make their life much better.

So it might be that in order to get a loan

you need to fill out paperwork,

and it might be 14 pages.

And each of the pages might have really small font.

And we might, three pages in, give up and think,

"I can't handle this", or "I'll handle this tomorrow."

And tomorrow never comes.

Sludge.

To get health care,

sometimes you might have to wait

for weeks or months to get a test-

sludge.

And you might find in a hospital, for example,

that nurses are spending 10 hours a week

entering things into forms-

that's sludge.

Our lives depend on our capacity to navigate something,

and when we can't frequently

because sludge stands in our way,

we're lost in a world of just fog and diminishment.

One of the less lovely facts of the last decades

of research into behavioral science

is that we now know more than we ever did

about how to manipulate people.

But if you have a company that wants to make money

at people's expense, it can use sludge strategically

as a way of achieving that goal.

'Dark patterns' are patterns of architecture online

that end up exploiting people's lack of information

or behavioral biases

to ensure that they end up buying things

they really ought not to buy,

or that they part with something

that matters to them

without fully knowing what they're getting into.

So for many of us unsubscribing to something is an ordeal.

And that's intended by the people who make it an ordeal

because subscribing makes them money.

They impose sludge

in order to make it hard for us to unsubscribe.

I myself subscribe to four magazines

which I more or less hate

because I didn't want to navigate the sludge

that was entailed in the unsubscribing to those products.

It's also the case that you can use sludge

as a way of disguising terms

that you're obliging people contractually to agree to.

It's time to recognize, right, not to be manipulated,

and often the method by which people are manipulated

is through the selective imposition of sludge.

Some of the most admirable designers of programs or cities

or products, are acutely attentive

not only to the product itself,

but to what human beings are actually like-

and often with a kind of humor and delight.

Never with a sense of condescension,

and never exploiting people's human foibles

to try to trap or trick them.

We can think of companies that are minimalist

with respect to sludge, in the sense that

it's just really easy to deal with them.

If you want to buy something,

return something, make a complaint-

they make it really easy for you.

The products are easy to use;

they're very intuitive and people want

to continue buying those products.

A 'Sludge Audit' is an exercise by which someone sees

how much sludge there is in a system.

A sludge audit should be focused on time,

because sludge is a kind of 'time tax.'

So you could imagine a hospital doing a sludge audit,

asking what are the obstacles patients face

in terms of waiting time.

Or a government can ask with respect to poor people

who are eligible for certain benefits,

what do they have to do every month

to maintain their eligibility?

They might have to do something

that's very burdensome every week,

and the sludge audit might uncover that.

Reducing sludge is not merely a way of giving people access

to the things to which they have a right frequently,

but it's also a way of demonstrating that they count.

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