Leading Tech Companies Foster Massive Addiction Economy
There have not been any studies correlating the current opioid epidemic with the inescapable digital screen addiction that we now face, but the parallels are strong. Anyone with teenagers knows the powerful spell that mobile phones can cast. But that behavior is no accident – instead the world’s largest and most powerful companies have spent billions to make sure that our “time of engagement” is constantly rising.
Quite simply, these companies have learned how to highjack our emotional responses and have literally addicted us to want more and more screen time.
Now there is starting to be a growing recognition and backlash to this endless screen addiction. As reported in Diginomica, an organization started by Gabe Zichermann of TED Talk and gamification fame called Onward, thinks we’re addicted to our devices and the apps they support and thinks there’s money to be made in curing us.
Onward focuses on digital addictions including screen time, porn, gambling, and shopping. They’ve been around in other forms almost forever but our web-attached devices amplify them.
Some supporting information, from Onward.org’s website:
Nearly half of people in the US say they couldn’t live without their phones.
70 percent of women and 61 percent of men are afraid of being separated from their smartphone.
Human attention span has dropped from 12 to 8 seconds, less than a goldfish.
Humans collectively spend 39,757 years on Facebook per day.
Netflix users stream more than 125 million hours of content per day.
While not as deadly as substance abuse, these powerful digital addictions can follow the same behavior pathways and stimulus response mechanisms as chemical addictions.
Are you or a loved one struggling with addiction, lying to yourself and others? Don’t wait any longer to ask for help. In today’s environment, you never know when your next dose will be your last!
Our Neuro Rehabilitation approach helps address the root causes of addiction once and for all.
To learn more about the Addiction Economy, please visit Diginomica.com