Irresistible : the rise of addictive technology and the business of keeping us hooked / Adam Alter.

New York : Penguin Press, 2017.

©2017

354 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Text in English.

People have been addicted to substances for thousands of years. For the past two decades, we've also been hooked on technologies, such as Instagram, Netflix, and Facebook -- inventions that we've adopted because we assume they'll make our lives better. These inventions have profound upsides, but their extraordinary appeal isn't an accident. Technology companies and marketers have teams of engineers and researchers devoted to keeping us engaged. They know how to push our buttons, and how to coax us into using their products for hours, days, and weeks on end. Tracing the very notion of addiction through history, Adam Alter shows that we're only just beginning to understand the epidemic of behavioral addiction gripping society. He takes us inside the human brain at the very moment we score points on a smartphone game, or see that someone has liked a photo we've posted on Instagram. But more than that, Alter heads the problem off at the pass, letting us know what we can do to step away from the screen. He lays out the options we have to address this problem before it truly consumes us. After all, who among us has struggled to ignore the ding of a new email, the next episode in a TV series, or the desire to play a game just one more time?

Online version: Alter, Adam L., 1980- Irresistible. New York : Penguin Press, 2017

English

July 17, 2017

Includes bibliographical references (pages 323-344) and index.

Behavior, Addictive.