Adam Alter

You didn't realize you pick up your phone, on average, 39 times an hour?

That you have a slight addiction to that game your niece installed on your iPad?

That your shopping tendencies, such harmless fun to you, may be controlled by invisible strings?

Welcome to the modern world, where behavioral addictions are surging far past chemical ones.

Adam Alter tells you about the history of addiction (from the hapless inventor of Coca-Cola to today's World of Warcraft, where you're lucky if you manage to will yourself to take a break to use the bathroom or sleep) leaving no stone unturned (hello, Sigmund Freud, you big promoter of the wholesome values of cocaine!) in the new field of behavioral addiction.… (mere)

A really interesting yet short read about how technology has changed to keep us hooked as the technology has become more mobile and ever present in our lives.

I wanted to read this book because recently I have been trying to step away from my phone more and be off the internet more because I have found it to stress me out. I recently deleted Instagram, which is the only social media I had. It is a decision that I have not regretted for a moment. I thought this book may help me flesh out ideas of why being on the internet and being on social media was so stressful for me.

This book did help with that by covering a broad range of topics under the umbrella of behavioral addiction. It focused a little more on gaming that I would have liked just because I don't play really any sort of video game. I wish there had been a bit more focus on social media behavior because that is what I have found most addiction when it comes to technology. I also really liked the section on raising children because its a topic I think about a lot when think about my childhood and how important offline play was for my growth and how different it might be growing up today.

I do wish the author had acknowledged a bit more how hard it is socially to be disconnected for days at a time. It was brought up how ubiquitous technology is but people who took days to answer emails or phone calls were spoken of fondly without the author ever really acknowledging that not everyone's job allows them to disconnect like that. Many jobs have a requirement that emails are responded to within 24 hours so many people cannot afford to just turn off email notifications. I think it would have been good to acknowledge that unplugging like that can be the hardest for the people making the least amount of money and the people who can least afford to lose their job over a missed phone call or unanswered email.

I think if this is a topic you're interested in, I would recommend this book. It isn't overly preachy about the dangerous of technology and it doesn't tell you never to use your phone. Not all the information was new to me but this book does help to flesh out how technology has been designed to become more and more addictive and how users are studied to make it a product as addictive as possible.


Also! not about this book but I've now read 15 books in January! I'm particularly excited about this because last year I read 30 books the whole year and right now I'm already halfway to that in just one month. Even though I think this will slow down now that I'm back in school I'm hoping to read many more books this year and I hope I will enjoy a lot of them!… (mere)