Stories Told Through Texts Helped This App Win 100m+ Teens

Young people crave stimulus — and the modern world obliges. Mobile phones and the internet provide constant streams of them: bright banner ads, colorful games, bingeable TV shows, infinitely scrolling content feeds. A text message buzzes and dopamine receptors in the brain respond with a quick biological fix.

According to a Nielsen analysis of the communication habits of people aged 22-37, younger brains have high multi-sensory processing capacity which leads them to seek out multi-sensory communications, especially ones that involve interaction. Touching, tapping, scrolling, and liking are the language of stimulating mobile interaction.

For years, reading on smartphones was largely devoid of the stimulating interactions we find elsewhere on our devices. But that’s changing, thanks to chat fiction and interactive story games — two fast-growing media formats introduced in the last 3 years.