Best article about forming habits I've seen

Again, scrolling through Ed Yong's 'missing links' and he's pointed to a terrific article in the NYT called 'How companies learn your secrets'.

It's about marketing data, how and why we form habits, and how (large) companies are using your purchasing records to guess when you will change your habits and develop new ones - in this case, when you find out you're pregant.

There's also a sizeable discussion about forming, and reforming habits, learned from behavioural psych.

It's sad that most of this research is currently going into figuring out how to make us buy more products we don't need, rather than helping us make more significant decisions - forming healthier habits, challenge our kneejerk reactions that hurt us or others.

It says a lot about 'free will' - that we're not nearly as free as we think we are, and much more governed by internal habits than we care to think.

Anyway - I think the habit-forming discussion would be of interest to larmer and kes_zone - two of the most habit-forming people I know. :-)