It grabs you where you live

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, addictions, technology

When I saw the book Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, by Adam Alter, the verse 1 Corinthians 16:15 came to mind. It speaks of a certain family that "have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints". At least, that is how the King James Version and two others translate the word εταξαν, a form of τασσω, which in the First Century meant "to set, appoint or ordain", but has lost that meaning in the centuries since. Becoming curious about the English usage of the King James era (early 1600's), I found that "addiction" referred mainly to fascination and devotion. Thus many English versions of the verse use either "set" or "devoted". The term was neither positive nor negative prior to the mid-1800's

Addiction has a much stronger and more focused meaning today. To be addicted is to be in the grip of a compulsion or obsession that harms one, or may eventually kill. Since the early 1900's or a little earlier, "addiction" has referred to a compulsion to use substances such as cocaine. As author Adam Alter tells us, there was quite a struggle in the later Twentieth Century among psychiatrists and psychologists about whether to recognize "behavioral addictions". But the modern phenomena—from binge-watching of TV episodes to online game playing, online gambling, twelve- to 24-hour FaceBook sessions and even "checking in" so compulsively that people walk into fountains, manholes and lampposts—have convinced nearly all that behavioral addiction is real and can be really, really bad.

Note the phrase above, "…or may eventually kill." I do not mean just the shortening of life due to bad health from being a "couch potato" or "FB zombie". Suicides have resulted, not just from being trolled online, but from despair over falling behind the social media rat race.

In a fascinating busman's tour through history, we find that addictive tendencies are with us for very good reasons: our distant ancestors did not become ancestors by ignoring the siren call of pleasurable experiences. In pre-agricultural days, over most of the Earth, eating everything that tasted good kept you alive, and getting all the sex you had opportunity to obtain gave you a chance at having descendants. Also, our ancestors traveled, and the dopamine-fueled thrill of seeing what is over the next ridge motivated many of them to seek new pastures and far horizons. Those who traveled the farthest may have been subject to extra risks, but the chance to populate a new and empty landscape was a benefit not to be ignored.

Our tendencies to fall prey to obsessions, compulsions, and addictions are a direct result of the tens of thousands, even millions of years, that humans lived with scarcity. Now about half the human race lives with relative abundance. What happens then? We overdo it; we overdo it big time.

The author describes many behavioral hooks that turn a potentially enjoyable experience into a compelling one. Unsteady rewards are a big, big factor. Even as Pavlov learned, once a dog has learned to associate receiving food with the ringing of a bell, it will salivate when the bell rings, whether food is given or not. But if food is given roughly every third time, the dog will salivate more and more. Rats given the chance to push a bar to get a food pellet will do so, of course. But if pushing the bar doesn't always yield a pellet, they will push the bar again and again, gathering pellets far beyond their need to eat them. Uncertainty is a big hook.

The most addicting games are those that you win about 1/3 of the time. If you win every time, you get bored. If you win less than 1/10 of the time, you look for a "better" game. This is just one example. Apparently, the most addicting computer game to come along, at least up to the time the book was written, is World of Warcraft. The second-most is probably League of Legends, which my son plays more than he should…though so far it hasn't affected his work enough to cut into his income. I hope that day doesn't come, but for many others it has come already (Cue a stereotypical video of a jobless Millennial who lives in the parents' basement and plays games all day).

So, can we do anything about this? Friends of ours despaired of even slowing down their daughter's FaceBook addiction. Her grades suffered badly. She almost dropped out of college. Nobody knows quite what happened, but she somehow developed a backbone, and a level of resistance, so that her grades improved, she graduated, and now has a responsible job. I don't know how much she may still read her News Feed on FB but I don't see a lot of posts from her. There are other folks—well, I just shake my head. I wonder how they have time to put one or two or three dozen posts in their News Feed every single day. Maybe we just have to let people outgrow it. Pity those who never do.

At the end of Irresistible the author discusses one "thing" (I can't think of another word) that seems to make positive use of the hooks that draw us in: Gamification. This is adding an element of fun into otherwise mundane, boring or unpleasant tasks. In the modern era, technological hooks can be used to trigger our compulsions, just enough, but breaks or "units" are inserted so we won't binge out. The FitBit is a potential gamification of exercise, but it doesn't have any checks, so some people damage their health trying to achieve ever-increasing goals. It needs some work.

But even without FitBit and its kin, overdoing it is a risk. I used to exercise a lot, including certain body-mass strengthening routines, and began keeping records. As it happens, that might have been a mistake. Or, at least, I ought to have obtained a buddy or coach to help me keep track and not ramp up my routines too fast. One day I did too many dips and pulled a muscle in my chest. It took five months to heal (I was about 40; were I younger it might have taken only a month or two). By then, the cycle was broken, and since then I primarily walk. There was no FitBit involved, nor have I ever owned one.

I am also reminded of Zooniverse, with more than 70 somewhat gamified "citizen science" projects. There aren't even any bells and whistles, just accumulating numbers of tiny projects completed, but that is enough that millions of people (myself included) enjoy sorting galaxies, counting penguins, or transcribing hand-written museum labels. Without a few little hooks in the projects, it is actually deadly dull work!

I consider the matter unfinished. We don't yet know how to cope with behavioral addictions. As the author writes, we are in the foothills of addictive technology. But not everyone is equally prone to addiction, whether to substances or behaviors. Perhaps Darwinism will run its course, and a future generation will consist mostly of people who are largely immune to the allure of the Like button.