Some thoughts on why I have permanently altered my relationship with my smartphone and social media (which will henceforth be referred to collectively as “technology”).
Technology is a slot machine
Gambling addictions are insidious and ruin people’s lives. While there is no immediately financial consequence from using your smartphone, the same mechanisms that empower gambling addictions from slot machines are at play in smartphones — instead of wasting away your money however, you are wasting away your time and attention.
A smartphone is a slot machine, but one that several billion people around the world play 150 times a day. Just like with casino slot machines, social media applications on your smartphone utilize intermittent variable rewards: the occasional “like” on a photo or the periodic notification from a text message. App designers, like casino engineers, know that addictiveness is maximized when the rate of reward is most variable.