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A review by greden
Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by Adam Alter
4.0
Steve Jobs: "Everyone should own an iPad"
Also Steve Jobs: "I forbid my children to own an iPad."
As a video-game designer and programmer, I found this book really interesting. It dives deep in the psychology of addiction, and compelling experiences, and describes how the new technological addictions are uniquely addictive.
Irresistible is a book about addiction, and how technology has created many new forms of behavioural addictions, describing social media, tv-shows, and games in particular and they're being designed to becoming increasingly addictive.
Addiction to technology is not a question about will power, it's 1000s of talented designers and algorithms with billions of datapoints teaming up against you to keep you hooked. Addicts to technology are in a tight spot since unlike alcoholics that can avoid bars altogether, we're forced to be plugged in the digital world to function socially and at work.
The book focuses on general addiction to a great degree. We have two basic needs that have shown to ward off addiction: 1) Social engagement and support. 2) Mental stimulation and a sense of effectiveness.
Alter described the 6 ingredients of addictiveness:
1) Compelling goals just beyond reach
2) Irresistible and unpredictable positive feedback
3) A sense of incremental progress and improvement
4) Tasks that become slowly more difficult over time
5) Unresolved tensions that demand resolutions
6) Strong social connections
These six ingredients can be mastered to make anyone compelled to anything, it's really general.
The books reveal the illusion of the addict-personality, and in fact, anyone in the wrong circumstance can be an addict - over 50% of the population of the developed world is addicted to something or another. Alter describes how Vietnam veterans who had been addicted to heroin returned to the USA, 95% recovered, whereas it was expected that only 5% recovered. The surprising recovery rate is explained by the change in circumstances. The soldiers took heroin to cope with the hell of war and were no longer addicts when their life situation improved.
The degree to which we are susceptible to addiction is the quality of life we have, and whether or not our lives fulfil our basic needs for socializing, progress, meaning and pleasure. Anyone is vulnerable to addiction, but bad conditions amplify the risk.
The definition of addiction, and certain addictions, is controversial. Is it a disease? A social problem? A lack of willpower? The answer is not quite clear. A lot of experts are actively avoiding the term addiction now because it does not seem helpful. In addition, the line between substance addiction and behavioural addiction is blurred. It does not seem like they are completely different animals.
I have a growing concern about the ethics of video games. I think that many games, MMOs in particular, are poison to the soul. Games like that hijack our motivational systems in a cynical way, like a mind virus. People, especially children and younger adults invest a tremendous amount of time and energy into something that barely yields anything in return. A grandmaster at chess is revered for their intelligence, an NBA star is celebrated for their athleticism, a black belt is respected for their martial skills. But a warlord in an MMO? The only thing you've proven is that you have enough free time on your hands, and are willing to be manipulated. The worst part is that nobody explains to children why it might be a good idea to spend time in real life. And so, I write this out of resentment, because I've wasted countless hours, from the age of 10 to 17, on dull MMOs, retarding my social, emotional and physical growth.
I think it's important to distinguish growth from progress.
Growth comes from adversity and the ambiguity of meaning and finding your own path. Numbers keep us secure and a concrete way of measuring progress. We are addicted to measuring progress, and we become afraid to indulge in anything that cannot be measured. When you perform actions and indulge in activities that are easy - experiences that are tailored to your psychology - addictive - there is no growth.
Progress is about attaining higher levels, higher numbers, more badges and other arbitrary rewards. Your brain hijacked by survival mechanisms that negatively affect other areas of your life by manipulating you to care more about something than it's really worth. Progress is about entertainment and social acceptance.
Growth, on the other hand, is embracing the ambiguity of life - figuring out the paradoxes of learning a skill, craft and art … it's suffering through the pain of learning and growing - genuine suffering - challenging your beliefs and becoming an individual.
Addictive video games, tv-shows, etc… hijacks our brain wired for learning about the world, socializing, and surviving - and makes us spend time, focus and resources into a black hole of meaning, where there is no serious effort, danger, risk on our part.
The powerful thing about addictive things like video games is that it defines a clear objective. The world is filled with ambiguity, paradox, a galaxy of possible life directions, goals and values, where a lot of people feel any meaningful contribution is far beyond reach. When a game defines a clear objective, a concrete goal, and then power it with a numerical value to keep progress - you’ve lifted the heavy burden of being responsible for navigating an incredibly complex world and have spoon-fed the illusion of growth in a one-dimensional way. Combine this with a concrete value to keep progress, a social ladder to climb, unpredictability and pleasant lights and sounds, and you’ve developed a crack that can be only resisted by someone embedded in a social system, have a clear meaning and direction of life, and feels as if they’re making progress and growing… And needless to say, this isn’t a lot of people.
I’m particularly concerned about the rise of technology addiction because it seems to me that the technological world is becoming ever more alluring in comparison to the real world. Not only is the virtual world becoming more entertaining, but I’m afraid people will forget how to enjoy the real world. We’re starting to forget how to entertain ourselves, and others, without a virtual interface. We’re losing our imagination because the virtual world is becoming more fantastic than the wildest imagination.
The scary thing is that any choice to enmeshed in technology or not is dwindling since more and more of the action is happening online. We can see this harmful effect especially in teenage girls pressured to be on social media. Dealing with the physical realm is a means to go back to the virtual, and ever-increasing “real”, world. I mean, in a world where communication is primarily via text, who is the “autistic” one: The one who can’t read people’s subtle facial cues or the one who doesn’t know which emoji-combinations are appropriate when?
If the virtual world is indeed more exciting than the physical world, I see no moral problem with switching the primary mode of being into a virtual one. I think that the best way to combat technology addiction is to actively seek to improve people’s real lives and at the same time teach children about the nature of addiction.
Whereas addiction has been a sign of poor life quality, or at least, a life missing one important element, the threshold of becoming addicted is becoming lower as we’re mastering our own psychology and how to manipulate it.
Gamification is a double-edged sword. Despite it’s seen as a brand new thing it’s really not. We’ve always strived to make experiences more appealing for our own benefit. The military has an ancient tradition of badges, awards, ranks, etc… the workplace has incentivized employees by promising promotions, higher salaries, etc… Military badges, ranks, corporate roles, and even money is ultimately make-believe. However, it's kinda real because we all believe in them. Virtual money is not qualitatively different, so the ethical problem of gamification is not a new one. From the dawn of humankind, we’ve designed experiences for people to act in certain ways by manipulating their motivational systems. Games, however, are remarkably excellent at this but pose a dangerous threat, namely that the investments put into that game does not yield real results in the real world, and the person is left empty after dedication focus, energy, time and even money into the game.
Key elements of successful gamification:
1) Levels/Points
2) Badges/Awards/Trophies
3) Leaderboards
4) Streaks
“Stripped from its fetish popularity and buzzwordy name, the heart of gamification is just an effective way to design experiences, and video games happen to do this well.” - Adam Alter
Making any type of learning fun is great, and gamification can be a good way to achieve this. However, I’m highly suspicious of using the addictive elements of game design in order to learn. Although the current educational system is pretty bad, gamification is probably better. But far from optimal. The best would be to make students intrinsically motivated because they see the “why”, they see the meaning behind the learning. It entirely depends on how you gamify it.
For example, I got addicted to Duolingo for a couple of weeks, a language-learning app that uses levels, points, gems, hearts, badgers, high scores and a daily streak to motivate you to keep going. In addition, it had beautiful colours and satisfying sounds. Mistakes took away a heart and becoming empty on hearts required you to repeat tasks or wait. Because of the scarcity of the hearts, I valued my time on Duolingo a lot. It was beautifully executed. However, when I bought the Duolingo Premium, I lost interest, because I had infinite hearts. The app tried to incentivize me to keep playing by adding other penalties for losing, but it wasn’t enough. It got too easy and I quit. I learned that, although I initially wanted to learn the language, what drove my use of the app was more the addiction of the app than my will to learn the language. Quitting the app, I’ve sort of lost my motivation to learn without it. It’s as if the fake enthusiasm backfired and my real motivation withdrew. I remember in particular, that the game has a high-score where you compete with others for #1 against 30 random users, the person who used the app the most wins. Even though I knew this was completely manipulative, the users were probably fake, and I yelled “I’m going to get you!” out of pure irony, it still managed to motivate me to play more.
What I seriously dislike about apps like Duolingo is that it tricks you into learning. The experience is enjoyable, yes, but for the wrong reasons! - whereas the learning should come from a deep place, a genuine desire to learn. Duolingo makes you learn - of course - but takes advantage of addiction principles that wire your brain to spend more time on it than you would otherwise.
The author describes a gamification fitness app called "Fitocracy," and its popularity. People are incentivized to work out more to level ups, win trophies, go on quests, and get this: interact with other people at the gym for extra points. I can't even begin to describe my hatred for this type of shit. What's next? Gamify the spiritual journey? Like Fitbit's and step-trackers, they make people obsess over external rewards other than intrinsic motivation. The author doesn't voice any qualms about this and seems ambiguous about the moral issue. This type of stuff makes me sick to my stomach, but who knows? Maybe it is truly beneficial to some in the long-term, although I seriously doubt it. I think there's two types of people: Those who can design their own "games" to motivate themselves, and those who have to rely on bullshit like apps. In some way, anyone who is mentally tough can probably design a compelling experience for someone else. Self-motivation is a lot like video game design.
The author brings up a voluntarily used self-torturing device that gives electric shocks whenever you do something naughty, to rewire the brain to quit unwanted behaviour. The author seemed ambiguous whether its a good idea. I find this idea absolutely apprehensible. People view self-restraint and self-mastery as something not worth bothering with and are keen on using the newest science to manipulate themselves to act as they wish. People have stopped believing in a self, and the new religion that states they are biochemical algorithms are getting a foothold. People view themselves as Pavlovian dogs and treat themselves accordingly, it’s disgusting. People are becoming so detached from themselves that they want to outsource the need for aligning their psyche, coming to terms with themselves, digging deep to find intrinsic values, and self-motivation. Self-manipulation cannot work long-term. However, even if we ever did figure out how to use technology to make self-restraint obsolete, we would end up with a mass of population that is truly just a bunch autonomous runs predictably by biochemical algorithms, where the self has faded away because it’s purpose has vanished. Suppose that, maybe in the future, the time for self-mastery has become a luxury of the privileged, and the masses must rely on self-manipulation to compete. - Anyway, this idea turns my stomach.
Some short notes on interesting ideas:
The language you use to describe behaviour is important. "I can't use Facebook" vs "I don't use Facebook." makes a difference, focusing on a new identity instead of self-restraint.
The key to overcoming addictive behaviour is to replace them with something else.
Schachter and Singer experiment: We project our suppressed feelings to a higher degree to other people. Suppression/Repression does not help - in fact, it may make things worse. Places with strong sexual morality have higher uses of internet porn searches.
Passively anticipating notifications is much more stressing than actively checking on the interval. Think about how regular army soldiers develop PTSD, while elite forces don't.
The book is somewhat saddening, honestly, since it highlights how our we are so readily manipulated and the danger is increasing, as we're getting better at designing more addictive games, tv-shows, shopping-sites and social media. And it gets me thinking about how everything around us is just a sort of manipulation, a gamification if you will.
Also Steve Jobs: "I forbid my children to own an iPad."
As a video-game designer and programmer, I found this book really interesting. It dives deep in the psychology of addiction, and compelling experiences, and describes how the new technological addictions are uniquely addictive.
Irresistible is a book about addiction, and how technology has created many new forms of behavioural addictions, describing social media, tv-shows, and games in particular and they're being designed to becoming increasingly addictive.
Addiction to technology is not a question about will power, it's 1000s of talented designers and algorithms with billions of datapoints teaming up against you to keep you hooked. Addicts to technology are in a tight spot since unlike alcoholics that can avoid bars altogether, we're forced to be plugged in the digital world to function socially and at work.
The book focuses on general addiction to a great degree. We have two basic needs that have shown to ward off addiction: 1) Social engagement and support. 2) Mental stimulation and a sense of effectiveness.
Alter described the 6 ingredients of addictiveness:
1) Compelling goals just beyond reach
2) Irresistible and unpredictable positive feedback
3) A sense of incremental progress and improvement
4) Tasks that become slowly more difficult over time
5) Unresolved tensions that demand resolutions
6) Strong social connections
These six ingredients can be mastered to make anyone compelled to anything, it's really general.
The books reveal the illusion of the addict-personality, and in fact, anyone in the wrong circumstance can be an addict - over 50% of the population of the developed world is addicted to something or another. Alter describes how Vietnam veterans who had been addicted to heroin returned to the USA, 95% recovered, whereas it was expected that only 5% recovered. The surprising recovery rate is explained by the change in circumstances. The soldiers took heroin to cope with the hell of war and were no longer addicts when their life situation improved.
The degree to which we are susceptible to addiction is the quality of life we have, and whether or not our lives fulfil our basic needs for socializing, progress, meaning and pleasure. Anyone is vulnerable to addiction, but bad conditions amplify the risk.
The definition of addiction, and certain addictions, is controversial. Is it a disease? A social problem? A lack of willpower? The answer is not quite clear. A lot of experts are actively avoiding the term addiction now because it does not seem helpful. In addition, the line between substance addiction and behavioural addiction is blurred. It does not seem like they are completely different animals.
I have a growing concern about the ethics of video games. I think that many games, MMOs in particular, are poison to the soul. Games like that hijack our motivational systems in a cynical way, like a mind virus. People, especially children and younger adults invest a tremendous amount of time and energy into something that barely yields anything in return. A grandmaster at chess is revered for their intelligence, an NBA star is celebrated for their athleticism, a black belt is respected for their martial skills. But a warlord in an MMO? The only thing you've proven is that you have enough free time on your hands, and are willing to be manipulated. The worst part is that nobody explains to children why it might be a good idea to spend time in real life. And so, I write this out of resentment, because I've wasted countless hours, from the age of 10 to 17, on dull MMOs, retarding my social, emotional and physical growth.
I think it's important to distinguish growth from progress.
Growth comes from adversity and the ambiguity of meaning and finding your own path. Numbers keep us secure and a concrete way of measuring progress. We are addicted to measuring progress, and we become afraid to indulge in anything that cannot be measured. When you perform actions and indulge in activities that are easy - experiences that are tailored to your psychology - addictive - there is no growth.
Progress is about attaining higher levels, higher numbers, more badges and other arbitrary rewards. Your brain hijacked by survival mechanisms that negatively affect other areas of your life by manipulating you to care more about something than it's really worth. Progress is about entertainment and social acceptance.
Growth, on the other hand, is embracing the ambiguity of life - figuring out the paradoxes of learning a skill, craft and art … it's suffering through the pain of learning and growing - genuine suffering - challenging your beliefs and becoming an individual.
Addictive video games, tv-shows, etc… hijacks our brain wired for learning about the world, socializing, and surviving - and makes us spend time, focus and resources into a black hole of meaning, where there is no serious effort, danger, risk on our part.
The powerful thing about addictive things like video games is that it defines a clear objective. The world is filled with ambiguity, paradox, a galaxy of possible life directions, goals and values, where a lot of people feel any meaningful contribution is far beyond reach. When a game defines a clear objective, a concrete goal, and then power it with a numerical value to keep progress - you’ve lifted the heavy burden of being responsible for navigating an incredibly complex world and have spoon-fed the illusion of growth in a one-dimensional way. Combine this with a concrete value to keep progress, a social ladder to climb, unpredictability and pleasant lights and sounds, and you’ve developed a crack that can be only resisted by someone embedded in a social system, have a clear meaning and direction of life, and feels as if they’re making progress and growing… And needless to say, this isn’t a lot of people.
I’m particularly concerned about the rise of technology addiction because it seems to me that the technological world is becoming ever more alluring in comparison to the real world. Not only is the virtual world becoming more entertaining, but I’m afraid people will forget how to enjoy the real world. We’re starting to forget how to entertain ourselves, and others, without a virtual interface. We’re losing our imagination because the virtual world is becoming more fantastic than the wildest imagination.
The scary thing is that any choice to enmeshed in technology or not is dwindling since more and more of the action is happening online. We can see this harmful effect especially in teenage girls pressured to be on social media. Dealing with the physical realm is a means to go back to the virtual, and ever-increasing “real”, world. I mean, in a world where communication is primarily via text, who is the “autistic” one: The one who can’t read people’s subtle facial cues or the one who doesn’t know which emoji-combinations are appropriate when?
If the virtual world is indeed more exciting than the physical world, I see no moral problem with switching the primary mode of being into a virtual one. I think that the best way to combat technology addiction is to actively seek to improve people’s real lives and at the same time teach children about the nature of addiction.
Whereas addiction has been a sign of poor life quality, or at least, a life missing one important element, the threshold of becoming addicted is becoming lower as we’re mastering our own psychology and how to manipulate it.
Gamification is a double-edged sword. Despite it’s seen as a brand new thing it’s really not. We’ve always strived to make experiences more appealing for our own benefit. The military has an ancient tradition of badges, awards, ranks, etc… the workplace has incentivized employees by promising promotions, higher salaries, etc… Military badges, ranks, corporate roles, and even money is ultimately make-believe. However, it's kinda real because we all believe in them. Virtual money is not qualitatively different, so the ethical problem of gamification is not a new one. From the dawn of humankind, we’ve designed experiences for people to act in certain ways by manipulating their motivational systems. Games, however, are remarkably excellent at this but pose a dangerous threat, namely that the investments put into that game does not yield real results in the real world, and the person is left empty after dedication focus, energy, time and even money into the game.
Key elements of successful gamification:
1) Levels/Points
2) Badges/Awards/Trophies
3) Leaderboards
4) Streaks
“Stripped from its fetish popularity and buzzwordy name, the heart of gamification is just an effective way to design experiences, and video games happen to do this well.” - Adam Alter
Making any type of learning fun is great, and gamification can be a good way to achieve this. However, I’m highly suspicious of using the addictive elements of game design in order to learn. Although the current educational system is pretty bad, gamification is probably better. But far from optimal. The best would be to make students intrinsically motivated because they see the “why”, they see the meaning behind the learning. It entirely depends on how you gamify it.
For example, I got addicted to Duolingo for a couple of weeks, a language-learning app that uses levels, points, gems, hearts, badgers, high scores and a daily streak to motivate you to keep going. In addition, it had beautiful colours and satisfying sounds. Mistakes took away a heart and becoming empty on hearts required you to repeat tasks or wait. Because of the scarcity of the hearts, I valued my time on Duolingo a lot. It was beautifully executed. However, when I bought the Duolingo Premium, I lost interest, because I had infinite hearts. The app tried to incentivize me to keep playing by adding other penalties for losing, but it wasn’t enough. It got too easy and I quit. I learned that, although I initially wanted to learn the language, what drove my use of the app was more the addiction of the app than my will to learn the language. Quitting the app, I’ve sort of lost my motivation to learn without it. It’s as if the fake enthusiasm backfired and my real motivation withdrew. I remember in particular, that the game has a high-score where you compete with others for #1 against 30 random users, the person who used the app the most wins. Even though I knew this was completely manipulative, the users were probably fake, and I yelled “I’m going to get you!” out of pure irony, it still managed to motivate me to play more.
What I seriously dislike about apps like Duolingo is that it tricks you into learning. The experience is enjoyable, yes, but for the wrong reasons! - whereas the learning should come from a deep place, a genuine desire to learn. Duolingo makes you learn - of course - but takes advantage of addiction principles that wire your brain to spend more time on it than you would otherwise.
The author describes a gamification fitness app called "Fitocracy," and its popularity. People are incentivized to work out more to level ups, win trophies, go on quests, and get this: interact with other people at the gym for extra points. I can't even begin to describe my hatred for this type of shit. What's next? Gamify the spiritual journey? Like Fitbit's and step-trackers, they make people obsess over external rewards other than intrinsic motivation. The author doesn't voice any qualms about this and seems ambiguous about the moral issue. This type of stuff makes me sick to my stomach, but who knows? Maybe it is truly beneficial to some in the long-term, although I seriously doubt it. I think there's two types of people: Those who can design their own "games" to motivate themselves, and those who have to rely on bullshit like apps. In some way, anyone who is mentally tough can probably design a compelling experience for someone else. Self-motivation is a lot like video game design.
The author brings up a voluntarily used self-torturing device that gives electric shocks whenever you do something naughty, to rewire the brain to quit unwanted behaviour. The author seemed ambiguous whether its a good idea. I find this idea absolutely apprehensible. People view self-restraint and self-mastery as something not worth bothering with and are keen on using the newest science to manipulate themselves to act as they wish. People have stopped believing in a self, and the new religion that states they are biochemical algorithms are getting a foothold. People view themselves as Pavlovian dogs and treat themselves accordingly, it’s disgusting. People are becoming so detached from themselves that they want to outsource the need for aligning their psyche, coming to terms with themselves, digging deep to find intrinsic values, and self-motivation. Self-manipulation cannot work long-term. However, even if we ever did figure out how to use technology to make self-restraint obsolete, we would end up with a mass of population that is truly just a bunch autonomous runs predictably by biochemical algorithms, where the self has faded away because it’s purpose has vanished. Suppose that, maybe in the future, the time for self-mastery has become a luxury of the privileged, and the masses must rely on self-manipulation to compete. - Anyway, this idea turns my stomach.
Some short notes on interesting ideas:
The language you use to describe behaviour is important. "I can't use Facebook" vs "I don't use Facebook." makes a difference, focusing on a new identity instead of self-restraint.
The key to overcoming addictive behaviour is to replace them with something else.
Schachter and Singer experiment: We project our suppressed feelings to a higher degree to other people. Suppression/Repression does not help - in fact, it may make things worse. Places with strong sexual morality have higher uses of internet porn searches.
Passively anticipating notifications is much more stressing than actively checking on the interval. Think about how regular army soldiers develop PTSD, while elite forces don't.
The book is somewhat saddening, honestly, since it highlights how our we are so readily manipulated and the danger is increasing, as we're getting better at designing more addictive games, tv-shows, shopping-sites and social media. And it gets me thinking about how everything around us is just a sort of manipulation, a gamification if you will.