Half of the developed world is addicted to something, and for most people that something is a behavior. We’re hooked on our phones and email and video games and TV and work and shopping and exercise and a long list of other experiences that exist on the back of rapid technological growth and sophisticated product design. Few of those experiences existed in the year 2000, and by the year 2030 we’ll be grappling with a new list that barely overlaps with the current roster. What we do know is that the number of immersive and addictive experiences is rising at an accelerating rate, so we need to understand how, why, and when people first develop and then escape behavioral addictions. On the lofty end of the spectrum, our health, happiness, and well-being depend on it—and right here, down to earth, so does our ability to look one another in the eyes to form genuine emotional connections.
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When adults look back on the past, they tend to feel that much has changed. Things move faster than they used to; we used to talk more; times were simpler once; and so on. Despite the sense that things have changed in the past, we also tend to believe that they’ll stop changing—that we and the lives we lead right now will remain this way forever. This is known as the end of history illusion, and it happens in part because it’s much easier to see the real changes between ten years ago and today than it is to imagine how different things will be ten years in the future. The illusion is comforting, in a way, because it makes us feel that we’ve finished becoming who we are, and that life will remain as it is forever. At the same time, it prevents us from preparing for the changes that are yet to come.
This is certainly true of behavioral addiction, which seems to have reached a peak. A decade ago, who could have imagined that Facebook would attract 1.5 billion users, many of whom say they wished they spent less time on the site? Or that millions of Instagram users would spend hours uploading and liking the sixty million new photos the app hosts every day? Or that more than twenty million people would count and monitor their every step with a small wrist-bound device?
These are remarkable statistics, but they represent an early waypoint on a long climb. Behavioral addiction is still in its infancy, and there’s a good chance we’re still at base camp, far below the peak. Truly immersive experiences, like virtual reality devices, have not yet gone mainstream. In ten years, when all of us own a pair of virtual reality goggles, what’s to keep us tethered to the real world? If human relationships suffer in the face of smartphones and tablets, how are they going to withstand the tide of immersive virtual reality experiences? Facebook is barely a decade old, and Instagram is half that; in ten years, a host of new platforms will make Facebook and Instagram seem like ancient curiosities. They may still attract a large user base—it pays to launch early—but perhaps they’ll be gen-one relics that have a fraction of the immersive power of the latest generation of alternatives. Of course we don’t know exactly how the world will look in ten years, but, looking back on the past decade, there’s no reason to believe that history has ended today, and that behavioral addiction has peaked with Facebook, Instagram, Fitbit, and World of Warcraft.
So what’s the solution? We can’t abandon technology, nor should we. Some technological advances fuel behavioral addiction, but they are also miraculous and life enriching. And with careful engineering they don’t need to be addictive. It’s possible to create a product or experience that is indispensable but not addictive. Workplaces, for example, can shut down at six—and with them work email accounts can be disabled between midnight and five the next morning. Games, like books with chapters, can be built with natural stopping points. Social media platforms can “demetricate,” removing the numerical feedback that makes them vehicles for damaging social comparison and chronic goal-setting. Children can be introduced to screens slowly and with supervision, rather than all at once. Our attitude to addictive experiences is largely cultural, and if our culture makes space for work-free, game-free, screen-free downtime, we and our children will find it easier to resist the lure of behavioral addiction. In its place, we’ll communicate with one another directly, rather than through devices, and the glow of these social bonds will leave us richer and happier than the glow of screens ever could.