‘Addictive Technology’ Is the New ‘Reefer Madness’ – The Atlantic

The irony is that, just as voters in states across the country are rejecting exaggerated claims about marijuanas harms and legalizing the drug, alarm over allegedly addictive technology is on the rise.

Read more: I wont buy my teenagers smartphones

In recent years, CBSs 60 Minutes featured Anderson Cooper interviewing Tristan Harris, director of the Center for Humane Technology, who claims technology is leading to human downgrading and is destroying our kids ability to focus. The Washington Post ran a headline declaring Subtle and Insidious, Technology Is Designed to Addict Us. Even The Atlantic ran a piece that asked Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?which, naturally, went viral on everyones smartphone.

A slew of books, with titles such as Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains, and Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our KidsAnd How to Break the Trance, paint a bleak portrait of the human psyche under the trance of internet-connected devices.

Moral panics are often based on half-truths. Reefer Madness wasnt all wrong. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, fully 9 percent of people who consume marijuana develop a cannabis use disorder, even though the drug is widely understood not to be chemically addictive (at least not in the way nicotine, alcohol, or heroin leads to compulsive dependence).

Similarly, personal technologies are potentially addictive to some people, but like cannabis, not to everyone. By promoting the idea that technology is hijacking our brains and getting all of us addicted to our devices, techno-fearmongers promote the exception rather than the rule. They redirect the debate to the product instead of the underlying causes of addiction for the unfortunate few suffering from the pathology. The fact is, the vast majority of people are not and will never become addicted to their devices or their favorite social-media platforms just as almost no one gets addicted to alcohol from having a glass of wine with dinner or addicted to pot from toking up from time to time.

Clearly, the extreme use of pretty much anything can be harmful. However, for those who use marijuana or Facebook moderately, the negative effects are negligible. While headlines spread fears about addictive technology, the data show that almost nothing is happening. Earlier this year, Scientific American reported on a study of 350,000 adolescents that found that technology use had a nearly negligible effect on adolescent psychological well-being. The article added, Eating potatoes is associated with nearly the same degree of effect and wearing glasses has a more negative impact on adolescent mental health.

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'Addictive Technology' Is the New 'Reefer Madness' - The Atlantic