6 Minute English from the BBC.

Hello, this is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English.

I'm Neil.

And I'm Beth.

Have you ever been sent a text reminding you about a doctor's appointment or

impulsively bought something on the internet because there was only one left?

If any of these have happened to you, then you've been nudged.

A nudge is a subtle way of altering human behavior. It's a powerful way for governments, advertisers and social media companies to

encourage or nudge people into making choices that benefit themselves and society as a whole.

Imagine the government want people to eat better.

It might encourage supermarkets to put healthy snacks in easy-to-reach shelves near the checkout

and hide the chocolate bars out of sight on the top shelf.

Shoppers are being nudged to eat better.

Well, that's the idea anyway, but often nudging is used less to benefit society and more to make money for big business.

And it happens more often than people realize, so in this program we'll be asking whether the idea behind

nudging to influence human behavior for good is still true today and as usual

we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.

But first I have a question for you Beth.

Another example of nudging happened in Woolwich, an area of London which in 2011 had a problem with antisocial behaviour, and particularly

with shop windows being smashed. The local authority decided to use nudging to fix the problem by painting pictures on the shop windows.

But what did they paint? Was it A cute kittens? B, baby's faces, or C, barking dogs.

I guess barking dogs would keep the window breakers away?

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