Reading List 013

Understanding how and why your child seems addicted to their phone…in this episode of the Reading List.

You’re Addicted To Your Smartphone. This Company Thinks It Can Change That.
By Haley Sweetland Edwards
Read the Full Article

One of the most non-therapy ¹ topics I have with parents is their disgruntled feelings regarding how much time their teenagers spend on their phones. I’m uniquely set up to guide these discussions as not only do I listen intently when teens are talking about apps but I’m also fascinated by tech so I’m always reading about it in my spare time.

But first let me reiterate my stance on technology with children in case you are unaware. I believe we need to introduce technology early, have open communication with kids as they mature and work to prepare them for their inevitable unfettered access to technology.

But I also sympathize with parents who feel their children are addicted to their phones. I’m a parent, I get it.

I offer the following article and pull quotes in order to demonstrate two dichotomous trends in technology; how mischievous app and phone developers are striving to addict us to our phones² and how more benevolent app developers are helping us understand and correct our addiction to phones.

Let me start with this quote from the article:

“The problem, critics agree, begins with Silicon Valley’s unique business model, which relies on keeping us in the thrall of our screens. The longer we are glued to an app – a value nicknamed eyeball time – the more money its creators make by selling our attention and access to our personal data to advertisers and others. You and I are not customers of Facebook or Google; we are the product being sold.”

Notice the phraseology of “eyeball time” and how it is paired with “selling our attention and access to our personal data to advertisers”

Here’s more:

“If, 20 years ago, I had announced that we would soon be creating machines that control humans, there would have been an uproar,” wrote B.J. Fogg, a Stanford University behavior scientist who was one of the first academics to seriously study how computers influence human behavior. But now, he notes, “we are surrounded by persuasive technologies.”

And, of course, it’s not slowing down anytime soon.

When the brain gets some sort of external cue, like the ding of a Facebook notification, that often precedes a reward, the basal ganglia receive a burst of dopamine, a powerful neurotransmitter linked to the anticipation of pleasure. That three-part process–trigger, action, reward–undergirds the brain’s basic habit-forming loop, he said.

This is powerfully addictive.

Pinterest, one of the first Silicon Valley firms to hire behavioral psychologists to work alongside designers, plays on our psychology in a different way.

Behavioral psychologists. Seriously. Shakes head…

Another young entrepreneur who took Fogg’s professional training, Nir Eyal, the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, now runs an annual Habit Summit in San Francisco. Participants, who pay up to $1,700 for the three-day conference, are given “practical steps” on how to design “habit-forming products.”

If someone is making $1,700 per person for a three day conference to basically learn how to addict your kid (and you, me and everyone else) that is an issue we need to address on a parental, and even societal, level.

Brown also points out an interesting fact we often forget as parents:

“Your kid is not weak-willed because he can’t get off his phone,” Brown says. Your kid’s brain is being engineered to get him to stay on his phone.”

Yikes.

Time to have another conversation when I get home.

And that’s the main point isn’t it? Have the conversation. Everyone I talk to about this, young and old, are disgusted by the fact that they are addicted to their phones. Even more so that developers work to addict us as discussed in the article.

So talk about it with your kids. Don’t just punish. Help them understand the trickery going on so they can become more informed and better adjusted to the onslaught yet to come.

Why a Reading List? I do a good amount of reading and I‘m constantly finding articles which are informative, entertaining and applicable to my private practice. Instead of hoarding this information to myself, I’ve decided to begin sharing the articles and pull quotes on a semi-regular basis.

Photo by Eddie Billiard.