The Addict in All of Us: A Groundbreaking New Look at Addiction

Book review: “ Irresistible, The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked ” 

Introduction 

First, I will explain why I chose this book. Technology is an integral part of life, especially in today’s world. Advancement in technology has led to global interaction and the fast spread of information. Consequently, our lives are improving day-by-day. However, just like any other innovations, technology has come with some adverse effects. One of the most common challenges associated with the technology is the issue of addiction. Apart from drugs, many people are not aware that there are many other causes of addiction. Generally, we have been associating habit with substance and drug abuse among the people. However, this book points out different forms of habit that we are facing today. Therefore, I will discuss this challenge based on chapters one and two of the book. 

Part I: Book 

For my discussion, I chose a book titled “ Based The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked ”. This book is relevant to my topic of addiction and technology. Today, we are faced with many addictive aspects of technology. One instance concerns the effects of technology addiction on student studies. Many parents and teachers have echoed their concerns about the performance of their students. Besides, I, too, have a personal issue with social media addiction. For many students, technology has helped us interact via such social platforms as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, among others. However, these sites have kept us away from the real world. Therefore, I chose the book out of curiosity. I wanted to explore issues related to addiction when it comes to the use of technology. 

Part II: Two Topics of Interest 

Chapter one of this book gave me a great impression. This chapter, titled “The Rise of Behavioral Addiction,” presents an in-depth discussion about the issue of addiction. It starts with an example of a person known as Kevin Holesh, who decided that he was not going to spend enough time with his family (Alter, 2018). Holesh was an app developer. He wanted to investigate the amount of time per day spent on his smartphone by developing an app known as Moment. This app would track Holesh’s time spent on the phone screen. He found out that the average time he was glued to the phone screen was one and a quarter hours each day. After sharing the app to the public, he found out that many people would spend an average of between one and four hours per day. 

Chapter Two of the book, “The Addict in All of Us,” points out that addiction is widespread among the people. Contrary to what the experts thought, tens of millions of people display more than one behavioural addiction in the developed countries. Some of these addictions include substance abuse like heroin, as per the study conducted by Robins. Isaac Vaisberg points out that there is much more to addiction than to the addictive personality. The rat experiment by Old and Milner showed that the concept of addiction is far from the simple stimulation of the clump of neurons (Alter, 2018). In short, these researches indicate that addiction entails a matter of learning. The conclusion from these studies revolves around curing issues of loneliness, distress, and disaffection among the victims. 

Part III: Corroboration/Contradiction 

Kwon, Kim, Cho, & Yang, (2013) echo similar sediments to that in chapter one. According to Min Kwon et al, addiction nowadays does not constitute substance abuse alone. Some of the common addiction issues today involve the internet, gambling, and smartphones. They are categorized under behavioural addiction. Over the recent period, cases of chatting, pornography, and gaming activities have shown similar characteristics like that of substance and drug abuse (Kwon, Kim, Cho, & Yang, 2013). The increase in internet access via smartphones has aggravated this situation. 

Sussman (2017) arguments relate to that in chapter two of this book. Chapter two of Irresistible, The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked acknowledges the spread of addiction among the people by pointing out different forms. In the case of Sussman, states that there exist many types of behaviours that exhibit forms of addiction (Sussman, 2017). There are sixteen categories of addiction, according to Sussman. They include gambling, food-related, physical attractiveness, drugs, and spiritual obsession, among others. 

Part IV: Practice Application 

From what I have read in these chapters, the information will affect both my personal and professional practices. I have come to learn that addiction is a widespread menace. The studies of various forms of addiction in chapter two are clear evidence that we are all affected. Besides, Holesh’s experiment on phone addiction has changed the way I use my smartphone. The average time of between one to four hours spent on the phone by the people shows that we are all addicted to our mobile phones. As a result, I will try to minimize this as much as possible. To improve my personal and professional life, it will be better to avoid the smartphone as much as possible. 

References 

Alter, A. (2018).  Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked . London, England: Penguin. 

Kwon, M., Kim, D., Cho, H., & Yang, S. (2013). The Smartphone Addiction Scale: Development and Validation of a Short Version for Adolescents.  PLoS ONE ,  8 (12), e83558. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0083558 

Sussman, S. (2017).  Substance and Behavioral Addictions: Concepts, Causes, and Cures . Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.