The Reason You’re Addicted To The Web, Social Media And Your Smartphone

Over the last 24 days The 2018 Digital Wellbeing Advent Calendar has outlined a set of practical strategies to live better with technology. We’ve shared ideas regarding your Netflix binging, excessive WhatsApp messaging, unrelenting email checking and Snapchat FOMO. We hope the strategies have been helpful.

But there is a deeper reason behind technology addictions.

That reason is called variable reward. And it’s the same reason gamblers get hooked.

Variable rewards are random positive reinforcements delivered after a task is completed. In other words, you get something good, for doing something good, some of the time.

And it’s the ‘some of the time’ piece that keeps us coming back time and time again.

We can thank pattern recognition as one reason humans have survived so long as a species. Evolutionary, it’s been advantageous to recognise patterns and respond accordingly. For example, that sounds like a dangerous animal I should run. Or, that looks like a delicious piece of fruit I should eat it.

Dopamine, an important chemical in the reward system of our brains, is released as a reward for completing behaviours our body believes to be good for us. Over time, as we repeat a dopamine-delivering-action, the neural pathway is reinforced.

As we try a novel piece of fruit, we get a little reward. The second time we try the fruit, we get a little reward again. But over time, the size of this reward fades and we’re incentivised to find new fruit for new rewards. However, if each time we ate the fruit the reward size was unpredictable, we’d struggle to find a pattern keeping our curiosity fixated on finding more of these curious fruits. This is variable reward.

This useful evolutionary trait is now being used against us.

The advertising model of technology companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google, requires user attention in app. How do they convince us to spend more time with them? Yep, variable reward.

Below are examples of popular apps and how they use variable reward to keep us hooked.

Smartphones notification

• Buzz, blink and beep – who / what could it be?

Email & WhatsApp

• Unknown message contents
• Read notifications – have they read it?
• Did they reply yet?

Facebook

• Has your post received more likes or reactions or comments?
• Who has liked or reacted or commented to your post?
• Have you been invited to an event?
• Has someone replied to a message?
• Pull to refresh, is there something new in your feed?

Netflix

• One more scroll, maybe you’ll find an interesting show

Snapchat

• Who is sending you a snap?
• Maybe it’s a funny snap? Or interesting? Or not?

Instagram

• Has someone liked or commented on your post?
• Has someone started following you?
• One more scroll, what will you see in your feed next?
• Pictures of beautiful landscapes or smiling people trigger emotional responses

Let's recognise the cues now we know what variable reward is.

Strategies

Despite a complex topic, today’s strategy is simple: recognise the cues.

Next time you catch yourself mindlessly scrolling, swiping or tapping, ask yourself...

• What will be shown next?
• Am I only here to see what comes next?

Should the answers be 'I don't know' and 'Yes', variable reward has you hooked.

Take a second to consider your intentions and if this time is time well spent.

Wrapping up

Today was the final post. We hope you’ve enjoyed The 2018 Digital Wellbeing Advent Calendar. It’s been a pleasure to share our positive strategies for better relationships with the web, smartphones and social media. If you’re interested in more digital wellbeing tips (including a heads up for next year’s advent calendar) register for our newsletter below…

Merry Xmas everyone!

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Author

Today's article was written by Fraser Deans. Fraser is a Digital Product Designer and founder of The Wholesome Technology Company, focused on practicing and spreading ideas for living well with technology.