Tech addictions don’t just happen to certain kinds of people. Increasingly we’re finding they can happen to any of us.

In today’s technology-rich world, many of us check our phones obsessively, binge watch television programs and pour over social media. Author and New York University Professor Adam Alter calls this behavioral addiction, an area of psychology he’s studied in relation to the irresistible games, apps and other software that compel us to play, watch, read, and respond.

Adam is author of the book, Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, and Associate Professor of Marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He’s also author of the New York Times bestseller, Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces that Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave, and he’s written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Atlantic, WIRED, and Slate.

In this interview we discuss:

How advances in the fields of psychology and design have made our tech so much harder to resist

The fact that most of us dramatically underestimate how much time we spend online and how little joy it often brings us

How the presence of an iPhone on a table undermines our ability to connect

The fact that our tech-rich work, travel and home environments actually set us up for addiction

Why screen time poses a threat to children’s ability to learn empathy

How addiction is a form of learning where a seemingly pleasurable activity becomes a learned behavior

Important research on want vs like when it comes to addiction

How tech designers take advantage of the destructive and addictive side of goal achievement

How breaking goals into small steps helps us feel success daily, rather than failure until the larger goal is achieved

Why the lack of natural break points in online articles and programming sets us up for addictive online behaviors

How tech and online designers tap into our preoccupation with closing loops and completing tasks to hook us

Why it is so important that we carve out daily time to put our tech away

How we wouldn't give most people the ability to interrupt us, yet we continually give our tech that power

Episode Links

@adamleealter

Adam Alter

Kevin Holesh and Moment app

Your Smartphone Reduces Your Brainpower, Even If It’s Just Sitting There by Robinson Meyer

Technology Addiction - How Should It Be Treated?

Lee Robins’ Studies of Heroin Use Among U.S. Vietnam Veterans

James Olds

Peter Milner

Reward system

Deep Work by Cal Newport

Aryeh Routtenberg

Kent Berridge

Natasha Dow Schull

Scott Adams on systems vs goals

Benjamin Franklin and the to-do list

Social comparison theory

Zeigarnik Effect - Bluma Zeigarnik - cliffhanger

The Sopranos

The Italian Job

Angry Birds by Rovio

American Academy of Pediatrics

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