The Science Behind Smartphone Addiction and How to Break Free

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Why We Crave Digital Distractions?

Unlike real life that can be boring and monotonous, on the internet, even if you want nothing, you can always get something. Our digital tools show us how a life online is one with endless possibilities (read, endless scroll). When we are bored, lonely and feel like we’re unable to make a dent in the world like we want to, we seek to distract ourselves with the enjoyment and fun the virtual world promises.

Wired To Connect

What separates humans from animals is our desire to belong, our desire to matter and to make an impact in the world. We do that by connecting, by communicating and showcasing the unique gifts we have to offer.

Add technology which has connectivity in its DNA and we are immediately intrigued. The promise of its potential to spread our message and share our ideas is vast. And that’s how we begin our relationship with technology.

The lure of social network is in our primal longing for connection. Social media exploits the basic instinct of human beings to belong, to matter and to leave a legacy.

How Big Tech Is Engineering Addiction

While making our world to smaller by connecting us and enabling humanity by increasing our productivity, efficiency and awareness through information, technology and social media do a lot of good. But, what is not public information is that

Big Tech is creating devices, apps and platforms that are becoming ubiquitous in our lives and pervading our day to day existence. Here’s how they are engineering addiction by hiring attention engineers, neuroscientists and social psychologists to manipulate, persuade and capitalize on our eye balls and our attention to increase their bottom line.

Rapid feedback, the unpredictability of responses and notifications makes Tech very hard to resist. Where else would us get badges of pride for maintaining our daily streaks other than on Snapchat? Where else but on our smart phone can we find something even we don’t have anything to search for?

Like sky miles and royalty memberships of airlines and hotels, smart phones have figured out a way for us to keep showing up to our devices and showing our solidarity to them 24/7.

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‘I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mis-truth. And it’s not an American problem – this is not about Russians ads. This is a global problem.’
~ Chamath Palihapitiya, Former VP of Facebook

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How Gaming Addiction Works

The League of Legends is a game that is labeled as the Electronic heroine of China because of the way its played in a compulsive manner in video game cafes around the country. Teenage boys in America are spending 11.3 hours per week on video games.

Good social games teach strategies like cooperation, concept building and helping to clean and saving cities in large universes.

But, sustained violent video gaming of games, like Team Deathmatch in Call of Duty: Black Ops, leads to decreased sensitivity, increased aggressive behavior and worst of all moral disengagement with society.

Games are designed by giving us goals to reach to. Engineers and app developers tread a delicate balance between making it very hard to cross each level, but rewarding us just before we’re about to give up.

When games lure us with the promise of social camaraderie with anyone, anywhere on the planet and getting rewarded for developing skills, where is that readily available in real life??

Our Sad Digital Reality

In real life, some sort of trauma ignites addiction to drugs or alcohol. But the addiction that’s being engineered by Big Tech is so powerful, its enough for us to realize real life by itself is not so stimulating.

As humans, we’re creative and imaginative by nature, but Tech doesn’t allow us to pause long enough to see our own stimulation from within. We’re tuning our inner voices out and becoming addicted to a compulsive behavior of substituting reality for a world of screens.

What we do in the digital world has real life consequences. When we turn 80, we will look back at our screen life and wonder what all those comments, likes and hearts really amounted in the digital wasteland of walls. Just what did all our digital activity mean to our personal goals and our long term vision? Did we live the way we wanted to and achieved everything we wanted to??

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Read Further

Understanding down regulation in addiction

How does social media addiction work

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Truth About Technology – A Digital Literacy Project