Digital Addiction
How Half the Developed World Got Hooked on the Internet
It's not your screen you're addicted to — it's just the conduit for your high.
NYU professor Adam Alter explains that behavioral addiction is similar to substance addiction: it feels good in the short term, but over time can negatively impact your mental state, social life, financial stability, and physiological wellbeing.
There's been a steep takeoff of digital addiction in recent years, with approximately half the developed world now exhibiting addictive tendencies when it comes to the internet.
It comes down to portability. The more wireless our devices become, the more our addiction follows us around, and the more we turn to our phones as "adult pacifiers" — just a swipe of your screen is enough to feel relaxed again. Adam Alter is the author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked.
First published 24 February 2018
Michael has spent much of his working life online—and much of the rest of it trying to stop that technology taking over. He has thrown a phone into a lake, locked devices in boxes and experimented with long periods offline. He writes about what helped, what failed and how to keep the useful parts of digital life.