Are we addicted to social media apps on our smartphones?
Yes, many of us are.
Two concepts are central to most definitions of addiction: habit formation and self-control problems. Habit formation means that using now makes people want to use more in the future. Self-control problems means that people use more now than they ideally would like to use. They have been measured in context such as smoking and alcohol use. A new study with a large experiment measuring “digital addiction” shows that they similarly play a substantial role in how people use social media.
What can we do? Offering self-control tools, encouraging people to adopt them, and designing features with “harder” limits that people cannot immediately override are some ways to get people closer to their ideal use.