Reviews with content warning for Addiction - The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

16 reviews

idesofmarch's review against another edition

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hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

3.25

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lilliana_blackstar's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

Very interesting, informative. A collection of anecdotes relating to research and science behind habits and addiction. Not really a "how to" kind of self help book, but more focused on helping you understand how habits are formed. A very good book and I think there are important concepts here that everyone benefits from knowing.

One complaint -
Would be nice to have a trigger warning at one of the last chapters, goes into some detail on violent actions. While I can see the correlation with discussion of habits and impulse control, a warning for the subject matter would have been nice.

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jomerl's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

2.5

This is just what it claims - a basic look at habits. Very basic. It has great basic ideas for habit forming but I found the data used to be deeply lacking. For example many studies used to provide habit data have since been uncovered to have alternative causes. The marshmallow study done with kids has been debunked once folks looked at wealth and poverty and realized the reason kids could withstand the temptation of the marshmallow was because they were the kids who had food at home. Of course wealth resulted in kids getting better grades and higher test scores. An understanding of this data is great but we need to look at the intersection of other key points to understand habits.

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jess_tries2read's review

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dark inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.5

I don't know my issue with this book is resulting from a symptom of this genre as a whole. By "this genre", I mean self-help books that purport to be science based (and often have credible sources) but do not present the information in a clear way. It feels like people who publish these books want them to only be digestible, and they fear them being compared to textbooks. The consequence of this is that they are all rambling anecdotes that bury nuggets of information throughout.

Which can be nice! There are so many interesting stories in this book. I learned about different parts of the brain, about rat studies at MIT, the invention of Febreze, about the former CEO of Alcoa, how Target started collecting data on their customers, the King's Cross fire of '87, the OG CEO of Starbucks, organizational habits in businesses and hospitals, sleepwalking, gambling addictions, and the Civil Rights movement.

The reason I'm rating this at 3.5 is that while the above stories are interesting, the constant topic switching made the pace very slow. Plus, in my opinion all the info you need from the book comes from the first 2 chapters and the appendix. It's like an info sandwich. Maybe it's designed that way so you don't notice that the middle of the book is so rambling!

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annaliseg's review against another edition

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Was really business focused when I was looking for something more like Atomic Habits

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angelfoodcakes's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

3.0

Interesting if you want to learn about things like the science behind and ethical debates surrounding habits and habit formation. I enjoyed the read, however, I can understand why people looking for books on how to form better habits or change old ones might not. If you’re looking for straightforward advice in this case you’d be better off reading Atomic Habits, but that’s not to say there’s nothing to be learned from this.

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ressicajicks's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

I liked this book overall but the last chapter about the woman’s gambling addiction didn’t sit right with me. I understand the correlation between addiction and habit, but the emphasis on “personal responsibility” towards the end felt like it was missing the forest for the trees. It is very easy to attribute overcoming any addiction to “personal responsibility” and “simply adjusting your habits” but this ignores the sociological factors that tend to play into addictions (not to mention genetic or environmental). I realize this was a book about habits and not addiction specifically, but perhaps then an example other than addiction could have been more appropriate to compare to the man who killed his wife in his sleep. Overall I appreciated the research that went into the book and I learned a lot about how our brains tend to function - let’s see if I can implement it!

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gemstonejasper's review against another edition

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hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.25

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marlihe's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.75

I checked this audio book out from the library thinking that it would be some standard, mushy self help. I just wanted something to inspire me to make changes in my routine. I was so pleasantly surprised that it was much more than that! The book goes into so many interesting case studies and is very well researched, with lots of evidence to back up all of the information provided. Listening to it felt like listening to that one really interesting episode of a podcast that you want to tell someone about later, but for hours and hours. It had both items for personal reflection, as well as stories that put the behaviors of our society in perspective. Plus the corporate section has some very interesting discussions of data analysis, which I found fascinating. Beyond just being interesting, it did provide me with the inspiration I was looking for - and even better, the context in which to think of my habits as I try to adjust them. The book was interesting and informative, and I’m sure everyone would be able to relate to at least some of the stories told in it.

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greatexpectations77's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.25

This was a really interesting read, and I'll definitely be going back to it for curriculum-writing. There were some places where I felt like the author was trying to push "habit" a little too far, but it all made sense. I am wondering how the author feels about Starbucks now that they're completely anti-labor.

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