![]() The problem is the environment in which we live: an alcoholic can pay bills without the assistance of alcohol, but nobody can pay bills without the assistance of the Internet. We learn that 48 percent of American college students could be diagnosed with some sort of Internet addiction, while in the general population, 40 percent are already Internet addicts and another 40 percent are borderline cases (p. But perhaps the situation can be managed for the greater good, with Alter occasionally calling on experts and policymakers to steer technology in more beneficial directions. ![]() Alter declares that we have entered “the age of behavioral addiction” and it is surely too late to stop the responsible technologies (p. And furthermore, unlike drug or alcohol addiction, online addictions are socially acceptable and mainstream. On the other hand, behavioral addictions are not so easy to escape, and the online versions are enabled by ubiquitous technologies. That addiction epidemic was caused by the presence of the drug and its dealers in the war zone, but when the soldiers came home to American towns where heroin was simply unavailable, they were able to kick their habits. Also, moving to a new environment where those substances are unavailable can lead to a miraculous recovery, as seen in the notable story of heroin-addicted soldiers in Vietnam (covered in Chapter 2). Substance addiction is relatively rare, and the person who is addicted to alcohol or illicit drugs must make a concerted effort to obtain them. The early chapters of the book cover the history of our understanding of addiction, noting the important distinction between substance addiction and behavioral addiction. As described by a “design ethicist” whom Alter quotes on page 3, the problem isn't that social media users and video gamers lack willpower, but that “there are a thousand people on the other side of the screen whose job it is to break down the self-regulation you have.” While addictive activities are nothing new, Alter finds that they are now becoming more and more ubiquitous, if not inescapable altogether. ![]() In Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, Adam Alter, a professor of marketing at New York University, combines traditional business and psychology research with an investigation of modern addiction engineering. User addiction is sometimes accidental but there is growing evidence that designers have learned to engineer and manipulate it. Scientists are discovering that social media, video games, and other online platforms have been designed to make them addictive, to the point at which privacy and other scruples are forgotten. Now that governments are finally investigating the use of personal data by online behemoths like Facebook, the time is nigh for evaluating how such companies have convinced billions of people to hand over their personal data voluntarily.
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