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I am hesitant to make any clinical diagnosis about technology and addiction – I’m not a medical professional. But I’ll readily make some cultural observations, first and foremost, about how our notions of “addiction” have changed over time. “Addiction” is medical concept but it’s also a cultural one, and it’s long been one tied up in condemning addicts for some sort of moral failure. That is to say, we have labeled certain behaviors as “addictive” when they’ve involve things society doesn’t condone. Watching TV. Using opium. Reading novels. And I think some of what we hear in discussions today about technology usage – particularly about usage among children and teens – is that we don’t like how people act with their phones. They’re on them all the time. They don’t make eye contact. They don’t talk at the dinner table. They eat while staring at their phones. They sleep with their phones. They’re constantly checking them.
Now, this “constantly checking their phones” behavior certainly looks like a compulsive behavior. Compulsive behavior, says the armchair psychologist, is a symptom of addiction. (Maybe. Maybe not.) What is important to recognize, I’d argue, is that that compulsive behavior is encouraged by design.
Apps are being engineered for “engagement” and built for “clicks” – behavioral design. They are purposefully designed to demand our attention. Apps are designed to elicit certain responses and to shape and alter our behaviors. Notifications – we know how these beckon at us. “Nudges” – that’s the way in which behavioral economist Richard Thaler has described this. But these notifications and nudges are less about “better decision making” socially as Thaler would frame it than they are about decisions and behaviors that benefit the app-maker: getting us to download an app, to register, to complete our profile (to hand over more personal data, that is), to respond to notifications, to open the app, to stay in the app, to scroll, to click, to share, to buy. These are actions that tech entrepreneurs and investors value because these are the metrics that the industry uses to judge the success of a product, of a company.
I think we’re starting to realize – or I hope we’re starting to realize – that those metrics might conflict with other values. Privacy, sure. But also etiquette. Autonomy. Personal agency. Free will.
Via Miloš Bajčetić
