How does technology affect a person’s health? Is it possible to get addicted to a smartphone?
Adam Alter claims that, as of 2017, over 40% of people displayed symptoms of behavioral addiction to various forms of technology, ranging from common devices like smartphones to more niche technologies like high-tech eyeglasses. What’s worse is that this number is bound to increase.
Keep reading to learn more about the biggest health concern of using technology: addiction.
What Is Technology Addiction?
Alter believes addiction is a major health concern of using technology that needs to be addressed. A behavioral addiction is something you can’t stop doing even though it does more harm than good, usually because you pursue it to the exclusion of your needs. Alter says that if you have a behavioral addiction to technology (we’ll call this a “technology addiction” going forward), you use technology so much that it interferes with your ability to lead a healthy life. For example, if you’re addicted to social media, you might be glued to it when you should be working, eating, sleeping, or being social. Prioritizing social media over other parts of life might be OK every once in a while, but when it becomes habitual, it has cumulative negative effects on your well-being.
Technology addiction is a controversial concept, as some experts believe addiction requires the use of mind-altering substances. However, Alter explains that our understanding of addiction has evolved: Humans have always used and become addicted to naturally occurring substances, like the nicotine inside tobacco plants. But we only began to understand substance addiction after early pharmacologists developed powerful drugs like cocaine. Experts promoted those drugs, leading to widespread substance addiction, until they began to observe addiction’s negative effects in the late 1800s. Alter says that emerging technologies are being adopted at an equally rapid pace, and we’re just beginning to learn that they can be addictive, too.
Three Mechanisms of Addiction
Despite the controversy surrounding technology addiction, Alter argues that on a neuropsychological level, technology can be as addictive as any substance. He explains that according to decades of studies on both animals and people, both substance addictions and behavioral addictions are facilitated by three mechanisms—and he suggests that technology addiction functions in much the same way. Let’s explore those three mechanisms:
We’ll call the first mechanism the pleasure cycle. First, the substance or behavior produces a rush of dopamine, a neurochemical that creates the sensation of pleasure (also known as a high). This rush of dopamine is so large that it disrupts your brain’s normal balance of dopamine. As you continue using the substance or engaging in the behavior, you develop a tolerance—you produce less dopamine with each occasion, so you need more of the substance or behavior to recreate your first high. In between those occasions, your brain produces very little dopamine; this causes you to feel very low, which can be difficult to cope with.
The pleasure cycle is the physiological basis of addiction. The second mechanism, which we’ll call emotional vulnerability, is the psychological basis of addiction—you need both bases to be truly addicted to something. Alter explains that humans are wired to seek external comforts that produce dopamine when we experience emotional stress—for example, you might vent to a friend or go for a run. People with addictions are emotionally vulnerable because they don’t develop healthy coping mechanisms. Instead, they turn to substances or unhealthy behaviors for a comforting dose of pleasure (dopamine). With repeated use, addicted persons teach themselves a lasting lesson—that the substance or behavior soothes emotional distress.
The third mechanism of addiction is memory. Alter says that if someone finds pleasure and emotional comfort in a substance or behavior, they’ll form strong, positive, subconscious memories of the object of addiction. So long as reminders of how it’s helped them persist, they’ll continue seeking it out, even if they understand it’s not good for them and want to stop. These positive memories can trigger deeply entrenched cravings and override their rational intentions to abstain. For example, someone who enters a rehab facility might lose the desire to use marijuana but relapse when they return home and see their bong.
What Do Technology Addictions Look Like?
Substance addictions can be relatively easy to spot—if you continually use an addictive substance, you’re likely addicted to it. But how do you know whether you have a technology addiction? Alter describes two kinds of signs that suggest someone has a technology addiction—behavioral symptoms and distressing effects. Let’s explore each.
Behavioral Symptoms of Technology Addiction
According to Alter, some of the symptoms of technology addiction include:
- A digitalized social life: Your most important social interactions might occur online because that’s most comfortable for you. For example, Alter explains that some young people prefer digital conflict over face-to-face conflict.
- Constant use of or proximity to the device or platform: You might compulsively check your texts dozens of times an hour, spend hours per day on your phone, and then sleep next to it.
- Dissociation from physical reality and attunement to virtual reality: You’re so engrossed in technology, you don’t notice real-life problems. You might ignore a cue like hunger to keep playing a video game.
Distressing Effects of Technology Addiction
Recall that definitionally speaking, you’re only addicted to something if your engagement with that substance or behavior harms you more than it helps you. Here are some of the harms of technology addiction that Alter lists:
- Isolation: If most of your social life happens online, you lack the face-to-face interaction that is needed to keep loneliness (and consequently, depression and anxiety) at bay.
- Poor social skills: The more isolated you are, the less practice you have developing social skills like empathy and effective communication.
- Poor sleep: Using your phone or laptop late into the night prevents you from sleeping well because the light it emits disrupts your brain’s natural sleep-wake cycle.
- Reduced capacity for attention: The compulsion to use technology interrupts other activities, resulting in distractedness and the inability to focus for long periods.
- Overall life dissatisfaction: If your technology addiction cuts into family time, worsens your work performance, or creates physical health problems, you may be generally unhappy with your life.
