The Hurts of Tech Addiction
Harnessing space within our lives
Technology, as we know it, is all around us. Whether we are busily checking our emails or scrolling through Instagram and monitoring our likes, or playing video games in back-to-back sessions, there are many technology tactics begging us to stay hooked on our tech and to not log off until after the next episode, the next game, the next scrolling session which may go on a lot longer than you expect.
When I was younger, I was addicted to a game called Transformice. The player-to-player aspect of the game–seeing people’s reactions in real time — made the game a sort of alternate reality for me. I would play in survival mode, and this mode was the optimal zone of challenge for me–some rounds I would win, and others I wouldn’t. Either way, I was kept in a ludic loop, or the just-enough challenge area that is also a feature of addictive games. I had a lot of friends on this game.
My social life was then transitioned onto Discord. Here, I would talk to my Transformice friends in real time. Having this non face-to-face connection was easy and rewarding. During this time, I recall my friend had a birthday party that she held in a hotel room, and two of my friends and I hung out there. Tonight though, I had a different agenda. I wanted to talk to my friends on Discord. In doing so, I successfully ignored my friend on her birthday. I was so sucked into my game that it drove me away from my real-time friendships.
Interacting in-game rather than in real life was a lot easier. I had an avatar–a mouse — and I could dress it however I wanted. Because I didn’t pay for the mouse’s clothing, I could dress her however I liked, as opposed to in real life, where I would have to worry about how much my clothes cost. I didn’t have to worry about being perceived as fat or unlikable as I feared in real life–my avatar did not have these qualities. Talking through the internet too, gave me a sense that I could create my personality as I liked.
Playing this game ultimately gave way to a lower self-esteem, and I was playing so much that I forgot how to interact with people face-to-face. The game left me with a feeling of depersonalization. There are many features of face-to-face conversation that don’t show up in games. Learning these social cues takes practice. Adam Alter, in his book Irresistible, references a situation where kids of an inpatient internet addiction facility were willing and able to strike up conversations online, but were completely averse to keeping up with a face-to-face conversation. Being immersed in a virtual reality world drives you away from the beauty and risk of genuine connection.
After my Transformice phase, I started to explore my identity on Instagram. Instagram objectified my personal self, just like Transformice had replaced my authentic identity with a constructed one. Once again, my idealized online identity triumphed over my authentic identity. Nobody had to know who I was; I could create myself into whomever I pleased. This may sound fun and useful, but an inauthentic portrayal of yourself can give way to tension and dissonance in your life, dissociating you from your authenticity.
I was prey to counting my likes on Instagram. Every post was another hit, another shot at achieving a certain amount of likes, and the catch was–you never knew how many likes you would get. This uncertainty keeps you up on the edge of another hit, like gambling. When we are uncertain of an outcome we are creating, the uncertainty gives us a high. In Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke, a scan of gamblers’ brains shows that their dopamine levels spike the highest at the maximum level of uncertainty in a game. I believe that Instagram and Facebook, social media platforms with numerical markers that objectify our identities, are the digital drugs of our age.
Objectifying myself online gave rise to an aversion to my IRL identity. I felt like I wasn’t who I portrayed myself to be, and I wanted to live up to what I portrayed. This gave me a sense of self-hatred and brought on a constant striving to be somebody I wasn’t–to be prettier than, skinnier than, better than, to have more likes than.. On and on. I was constantly measuring myself up against an unrealistic, unattainable ideal.
This dissociation from reality became toxic and addictive. The high I got from portraying myself as a completely different person and from the likes I got on my pictures led to heavy substance use.
An addiction to my online portrayal went hand-in-hand with using substances. I felt that the avatar I portrayed had no flaws, and so why was it that I had flaws? I didn’t know what it meant to be human. I started using appetite suppressing drugs because I felt they enhanced my personality and made me look skinnier, and I nearly drove myself into oblivion because of it.
Technology is a harmful driving force of addiction in the modern era, and we can easily fall prey to games that are designed to hook us, to apps that profit off of our overconsumption. So how can we heal from this and what are ways technology can work in our favor?
Adam Alter’s book, Irresistible talks about a process called motivational interviewing. When someone is addicted to something, you ask them questions about their addiction and urge them to uncover their personal reasons for wanting to change.
The objective of motivational interviewing is to weigh the costs and benefits of the addiction. What need is the addiction fulfilling? For me, my addiction to games stemmed from a need for social validation. If I had employed this method earlier, then past me could’ve done a detox from games by establishing a social network. Unfortunately, I don’t know how hard that would’ve been all things considered. Because the root of my addiction was a need for social connection, I would have to find alternatives for this root cause — a healing factor that comes from motivational interviewing.
Motivational interviewing not only highlights your unmet needs, it also highlights the costs of your addiction. What is your addiction costing you? In underlining what your addiction is compromising in your life, whether that be your relationships, your work, or something else, you are able to gain insight and change.
One way you can effect change is what Alter calls the Self-Determination theory. We are motivated intrinsically when we have autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Addiction often infringes on at least one of these strengths, and through motivational interviewing we are able to identify these strengths. When we discover what’s infringing on our intrinsic motivation, we are driven to act for ourselves.
Oftentimes it is not about willpower, but it is about avoiding temptation. My mom, when I was at the peak of my substance addiction, took me to Maryland for a detox. In removing the surroundings where my addiction had sprouted, we took away the cues and moved into an environment where I would not be reminded of my addiction. A misconception I had during my addiction was that I had no willpower to stop it, but how could I have stopped it if every cue reminded me of my next hit? There is a study in Irresistible that invites you to consider this phenomenon. Researchers found that Vietnam veterans, upon returning home from war, had an immense decrease in heroin addiction. The reason behind it was the environment they were exposed to. Your environment defines your triggers.
Moving into this new environment, I started to attend group therapy. I learned to own parts of myself I had abandoned during my addiction. This is where motivational interviewing peeked into my life. During group therapy, we learned about ourselves. We shared our experiences and learned different reframes. I remember this one activity that asked us about our different love languages. Being asked about myself gave me a sense of ownership over the various facets of my personality–and I was learning more about not only my flaws, but my strengths. I was gaining autonomy and competence. Group therapy taught me that my sense of self can be restructured through self-discovery and learning.
My parents further gave me the space I needed to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and my addiction. With the space, I realized the consequences of my behavior and the toll it had taken on my life. Having this space and gaining ownership over myself gave me the motivation to continue forward with sobriety.
As I said earlier, it’s often more important to restructure your environment than rely on willpower. That’s where behavioral architecture comes in handy. If I have Instagram downloaded on my phone, chances are I’m going to fall back into a loop of my addiction. Creating psychological or physical space from these cues can help us get rid of our bad habits. For example, I recently felt like I was scrolling on Medium too much, and I decided to delete the app on my phone. This way, I read stories when I’m on my computer but not when I’m on my phone. Upon creating physical space from the app, I was able to avoid an undesirable habit. On top of creating less room for bad habits to perpetuate, we can also harness technology in our favor.
For example, Adam Alter talks about an educational program called Quest2Learn. This program gamifies education to create a fun learning experience. Similarly, we can make things fun in the real world by making them into games. I’ve toyed around the idea in my head of an app that can track your to-do’s and the quality of the work you provide into numbers, and which can reward you more coins to buy for an avatar. This reminds me of the self care app, Finch, which gives you coins for the self-care you do for yourself. With these coins, you can buy accessories for your adorable little bird figure. Similarly, my imagined app gamifies your to-do’s, and the more to-do’s you get completed, the more coins you can get for your avatar. This creates a motivation to do whatever it is that connects with the avatar. Yet, the extrinsic motivation is not such a huge incentive that it takes away from the intrinsic reward of completing the tasks or self-care. Gamification can be used to motivate us — to give us that extra boost — when we struggle to find the internal reserves to trudge on solemnly.
Extrinsic motivation aside, I strongly believe intrinsic motivation to be the most powerful factor in aiding you to perform things. For example, an app that has strong gamification incentives draws from its game-like attributes, and not the intrinsic qualities of the activity itself. This can foster addiction to the activity for the wrong reasons.
The question of gamification and technology usage, I believe, comes down to values. What do we value and how do we instill these values into our daily lives? If we can start by building a good identity through our habits such as taking a short cold shower each day and doing 15 minutes of yoga alongside this, we mark a tally next to an identity for health consciousness. It’s important to make value based choices and to be aware of what habits these values accompany. This way, you are relying on your intrinsic reserves rather than relying on extrinsic motives.
Ultimately, technology cannot replace your intrinsic motivation. Technology, like the self care app Finch I discussed earlier, can be used to boost your motivation for self-care if you have none, but it should ultimately be the identity you strive to achieve — to be someone who values self-care — that drives your growth. I’ve used Finch in the past, and it appealed to me because of its cute graphics and rewarding chirping sounds, and I eventually deleted the app and started to pursue self care in itself, relying on my intrinsic motivation instead. When you build up value-laden habits, you are motivated to consistently strengthen your systems of behavior.
A sense of ownership over your life is essential to wanting to change — motivational interviewing helps us to realize the unmet needs our addictions are fulfilling and the costs of these same addictions. Behavioral architecture in our lives can be designed so that we avoid temptations rather than rely on limited reserves of willpower. To list some examples of behavioral architecture, you can ask your family member to hide your phone or manipulate website blockers to block some of your go-to pages. In this phase of recovery, new value laden systems can take hold. Technology can be harnessed to motivate your good habits. With a little fun and spice in our lives, we are more driven to perform organic tasks. Our values are the ultimate markers of the good behaviors we perform and the bad behaviors we avoid, and so we can start feeling safe in our own shoes.
