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Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

289 points by smb111 8y ago

spuz 8y ago
Thanks for posting this. I've believed for a long time that tech addiction is a solvable problem and technology itself can be part of that solution. I have lots of ideas about how this would work, if only I could break my own addiction to technology and start implementing them.
kiostech 8y ago
App application helps you to stay focus https://www.forestapp.cc/en/ https://www.forestapp.cc/en/ P.S Not advertisement
harryf 8y ago
It's what Paul Graham was saying back in 2010... http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html
jeffbarg 8y ago
"While Apple, Google, and Facebook are beginning to offer tools to better understand how much we use their devices and services, those companies can’t viably fix technology addiction because their businesses prevent them from doing so." Apple's business doesn't. I think Screen Time and App Limits will likely become two of Apple's main competitive advantages going forward because of it -- there's no way Google or Facebook could offer such a product for their services in any meaningful way without destroying their core business.
- ryandvm 8y ago
  Not sure about Facebook, but Google is already beta testing exactly what you're talking about: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/6/17655520/google-digital-wellbeing-beta-now-available-dashboard-app-timers-wind-down https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/6/17655520/google-digital-we... I have it on my Pixel 2 and it works great.
  - emsy 8y ago
    I'm curious whether the data is stored locally or if it's also sent to Google, possibly to be used against your interest.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  "Apple's business doesn't. I think Screen Time and App Limits will likely become two of Apple's main competitive advantages going forward because of it -- there's no way Google or Facebook could offer such a product for their services in any meaningful way without destroying their core business. " Sure Apple depends on screen addiction too. Why would somebody buy a $1000+ phone and then not use it?
  - eswat 8y ago
    Think a smarter, more sustainable usage model phone companies should depend on is controlled use, not addiction. You eventually just get an unhappy userbase that’s about to burn themselves out of your ecosystem with the latter. Think this is what the OP is hinting at since Apple has pricing models that are less reliant on the latter.
Bakary 8y ago
In my own experience struggling with addiction I've found that it is a symptom rather than a cause. Once you craft a life that is actually stimulating the tech loses its hold over you pretty quickly, if not instantly (for example when you go on a weekend outing in nature and completely forget your phone). Of course, the time and energy wasted due to the dysfunctional behavior presents a chicken-and-egg roadblock against making this happen. I recall the studies showing the difference between Vietnam veterans who got hooked on dope and those who didn't, as well as Bruce K. Alexander's Rat Park experiments. The other thing I've learned is that control or blocking tools can be self-defeating, since they transform fighting the addiction into a perpetually unfinished task ("It's been Y time since I did X") that naturally remains to the forefront of your brain and leaves you vulnerable if you end up in an environment without those restrictions. It's ultimately easier to address the underlying causes of trying to escape through technology.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  Addiction seems to fill emotional voids like unresolved trauma, depression, ennui, unfulfilled ambition and so on. I think much like a bad habit, an addiction needs to be replaced by something else that fills the gap but is positive instead (for example exercise, working, learning, or sports) otherwise the gap is still there and will exert continued pressure to return to the addiction. That or (where possible) removing the gap entirely by working through the root emotional cause.
  - mbrock 8y ago
    The Buddhist perspective seems to be that we suffer from a general addiction ("craving"). Meditation is supposed to shine a light on that. Since few people ever just sit down without entertainment or work, the meditation posture becomes a way to notice (and subdue) one's constant tendency to reach for something to enjoy or accomplish. This craving comes as part of "attachment", the way our minds are hooked up into all kinds of duties, relations, plans, hopes, fears, etc. Mental life is like swinging from branch to branch in a jungle of obligations, desires, aversions, gossip, anxieties... In modern parlance it's the phenomenon that makes us feel constantly stressed about all kinds of stuff, in the most general sense, up to and including the end game vision that one day we're going to die, so we better get to work. Every time I check something off my todo list, two more things appear... Without buying into Buddhist metaphysics, I do think it points out something that's extremely palpable in these days, thus the recent (fading?) trending interest in meditation and mindfulness. Another lucid perspective on it is McLuhan's, like in a brief essay called "The Agenbite of Outwit." http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/mcluhan-studies/v1_iss2/1_2art6.htm http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/mcluhan-studies/v1_iss2/1_... With the telegraph Western man began a process of putting his nerves outside his body. Previous technologies had been extensions of physical organs: the wheel is a putting-outside-ourselves of the feet; the city wall is a collective outering of the skin. But electronic media are, instead, extensions of the central nervous system, an inclusive and simultaneous field. Since the telegraph we have extended the brains and nerves of man around the globe. As a result, the electronic age endures a total uneasiness, as of a man wearing his skull inside and his brain outside. We have become peculiarly vulnerable. The year of the establishment of the commercial telegraph in America, 1844, was also the year Kierkegaard published The Concept of Dread. Mental health in the age of the internet indeed seems like a major topic.
666lumberjack 8y ago
It seems inevitable to me that as ML-based algorithms get better at exploiting the quirks in our monkey brains and keeping us on platforms for longer and longer periods, somebody will need to develop a counter-algorithm that lives in a browser extension or (somehow) on your device and is able to recognize unhealthy engagement patterns and make you aware of them. Actually implementing such a thing in a way that's performant and trustworthy and marketing it to people who maybe aren't consciously aware of how easily the brain can be manipulated involves a number of tough challenges, but it seems like it'll have to happen eventually.
- kurthr 8y ago
  Yeah, just use the "performant" frustration tools invented by the telcos and great firewall... slow down the load/scroll, jerk the video, lose images, drop UI events, add typos, force reloads. Soon you'll hate that "social" interaction game. It's difficult but not impossible on HN :^D
- jon_richards 8y ago
  I predict that one day we'll all have our AI best friend. They'll teach and socialize us when we're young, guide and consol us as we grow, and protect us from misinformation and adversarial AIs throughout our lives. Picking the brand of AI for your kid will be the most important decision you ever make for them.
  - kurthr 8y ago
    I suspect that your parents will choose for you, and the majority will be ad supported.
    - b_tterc_p 8y ago
      I would wager less ad based, more political / religious / nationalist indoctrinated AI personalities.
  - mrfredward 8y ago
    The ultimate bubble. Your "friend" won't ever disagree, nor share any viewpoint other than what parents want the child to hear. The only interesting point will be to see what the "friend" chooses to do when the parents and the child disagree. AI "friends" could be terrific in teaching children, but there is a danger in consumers taking the short-sighted approach and buying the A.I. which is most likable. Imagine how spoiled kids will be when most of their "friends" always agree and serve them like butlers. People love to pay for indulgence, but never want to pay for tough-love.
gregw2 8y ago
example of underappreciation: chrome no longer respects /etc/hosts so I can't block my addictions the simple way
- danielbln 8y ago
  Version 69.0.3497.100 (current at time of writing) on MacOS still respects the /etc/hosts.
- chrisjack 8y ago
  use firefox. And the bonus is that you won't have all the privacy consern chrome pose.
air7 8y ago
Ironic reading this during an undeserved HN binge...
DanielBMarkham 8y ago
I disagree. Here's why: This is a problem I've been toying with for more than six years, ever since I realized that tech's purpose is to gain control of as much attention span across the planet as possible. It can't help it. Since I teach how to organize project/product/org information, I played a little mental game: what is the minimum amount of tech I would need and still stay connected to the rest of the planet? My answer? A piece of hardware that displays plaintext, in e-ink format (to prevent the necessary communications around "upgrade your device now!"). Plain lists of stuff I consume that I can manipulate with my fingers (to prevent keyboards, audio sensors, kinnect, etc from getting their foot in the door). No visible O/S or apps. (No updates, patches, app-store chicanery etc.). Important: no way to install anything or to consume any other content besides what's on the app. No links, no follow-ups. Just what I have predetermined I want to see. UI? A plain, unadorned list and for each list item some more plaintext. But what about conversations? Saving stories? Doing research? Well, most of that is social-media addictive nonsense (you really don't need to Tweet "OMG!", but some it is required. For that we have buttons and a microphone. The microphone (and WiFi) have real, wired switches to turn them off and on that can't be disabled by software. (More telemetry problems here). Four buttons. That's it. The device should try to sort your list and associated text, so you need a way of saying "I like this kind of thing" and "I don't like this kind of thing" so it can learn. You need a way of saving something for later to download, research, study, reply, and so on. The fourth button was controversial. I felt there were times when an immediate response was needed. So you push the button and speak. No writing. No speech-to-text. You say in your own words what you want. (Lots of problems here about nuance in text and non-verbal communication) Somehow that gets to the other person. Never worked that out. At this point you have enough features that I'd argue you could support 80%+ of the activity people use the net for. Would you still need to research stuff? Sure. Play games? Sure. Converse in realtime about things you're interested in? Sure. But those are different physical units. You need to make both a mental decision and a physical effort to do those things. It should be apparent visually to yourself and others that these are the types of activities you are now engaged in. There can be no confusion, either internally or to an outside observer. Tech is supposed to be about helping others. Instead it's become about making more tech. This was a fun exercise. Made me realize how far we are, and continue to go, from what we really need. It may be an unappreciated market, but a lot of other folks have tried and failed. I got zero interest in this, aside from people who also had a problem with tech addiction. I believe the problem for most is: where's the payout? To be done correctly, this may work best as a philanthropic effort, not a startup. This isn't an under-appreciated market. This is the place with the greatest current gap between human suffering and people willing to help end it. ( This is when I started writing about the problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349447 I even made a crappy demo video as part of my first "real" F# project: https://vimeo.com/14460868 https://vimeo.com/14460868 )
sfrj 8y ago
You think the solution to this is to make an app? Looool
- mthom 8y ago
  You're on HN, my man, the solution is never not an app!
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    With an exit plan of selling to Facebook with a $2 billion valuation
- sjg007 8y ago
  Yep. There's a couple ideas here. It's a bit convoluted though.
zelias 8y ago
What do you guys think about a bar/club that's inside a big Faraday cage?
ds0 8y ago
"The real answer to solving technology addiction is the answer to sustainably solving most problems: innovation spurred by capitalism." I find that when capitalism spurs innovations, those innovations work toward the sustenance of capitalism as a system, which I take some issue with. If some plucky startup solves tech addiction, it will be in a way that makes you a more effective worker or consumer.
- mrfredward 8y ago
  >If some plucky startup solves tech addiction, it will be in a way that makes you a more effective worker or consumer. Well, that might not be ideal, but it might be better than the alternatives. My last employer paid me a dollar for every day that I tracked a workout meeting certain criteria and synced it with the insurers app. Employers save on insurance by having healthy employees, so they pass on the incentive. Not exactly utopian, and there are privacy concerns, but overall it was positive, even if the motivation behind it wasn't really because they care. But now try to think of an alternative. No one else has the incentive to do it, except government. And if government did it, it would probably end up being a complicated tax deduction only taken by wealthy people who hire accountants or would involve some Orwellian government-backed tracking app. I'm not really afraid of capitalism doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. The beauty of capitalism is how often self-interested people are incentivized to work for mutual benefits. If the free-market actually has incentives to fix smart-phone addiction, that's great. If the incentives aren't strong enough, then we'll probably end up with a government solution involving GDPR type clumsiness, but that might be the best we can do.
golergka 8y ago
How come the article that has "market opportunity" in the title doesn't use the term "marketing" even once? Shouldn't that be the central theme of this - how do you sell this to people?
Karunamon 8y ago
The fact that they called this "tech addiction" rather than "smartphone (app) addiction" was rather disappointing, given the latter was the entire focus of the article. I clicked the link wondering how they were going to differentiate addiction from reliance; as in, if we were all EMP'd tomorrow and set back to agrarian days, a lot of people will die, and not just from starvation.
goplusplus 8y ago
The idea of productizing tech addiction recovery funded by the VCs which fund tech addiction enabling products seems slightly disingenuous.
- mrfredward 8y ago
  VCs invest to make money, and I just can't see what the revenue model would be. There's no ad revenue to be had in convincing people to stop looking at their phones. Get people to pay for an app? Any price other than free means crossing a pretty major psychological barrier.
  - harryf 8y ago
    Parents would pay. I'm a parent and have already paid for services to help me manage my kids phone addiction
  - mbrock 8y ago
    People actually pay a lot of money for meditation retreats, which are basically just camps where you get to stop looking at Twitter for a while.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  It's like fast food and soda companies sponsoring efforts against obesity :-).
  - rargulati 8y ago
    It's more like the creator and distributor of a popular opioid turning around and selling the drugs that help you wean off. Oh wait... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/09/08/the-man-who-made-billions-of-dollars-from-oxycontin-is-pushing-a-drug-to-wean-addicts-off-opioids/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.952a99c7af39 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/09/08/t...
  - beat 8y ago
    Read Michael Pollan's books and essays about the "healthy" food market, and marketing "magic ingredients" that make factory junk food "healthy". Omega-3! Chia seeds! Vitamins!
commandlinefan 8y ago
You'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.
- jjgreen 8y ago
  Not so easy with those powerful texting thumbs
Nasrudith 8y ago
We used to have far more focus rooms - they were called offices. Tech is a convenient scapegoat for environments unconducive to focus and lack of interest in the task. It can also help with emotional state management which is useful over just banging your head against the wall. One use I find for HN is that it is usually pretty good at getting me in a rational and focused state of mind - it is similar to the benefit of a dedicated office vs your home PC. Productivity research in general suffers from a beancounting mentality in treating everything like it is turning an oar.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I definitely notice that. In my cube farm it's so loud that I often can't focus so I start reading Hacker News or stare at my phone as distraction. When I work from home I actually work because it's nice and quiet.
  - ramblerman 8y ago
    I also find that I can read Hacker News far better at home ;)
pelario 8y ago
It is at least funny how therapy is not even mentioned in the article...
cerealbad 8y ago
smartphones are in their smoking is cool so do it everywhere phase. the novelty will wear off. i enjoy patiently waiting in silence. if i am travelling on public transport, or sitting in waiting room, or standing in a long queue, i find my personal quiet contrasted by the various background noises relaxing and beneficial. i can remain aware of my surrounding/map, people and objects, clocks and time, scenery. i can play memorization, prediction or pattern games, revisit some old problem or simply turn my brain off and let the time pass without incident. am i a silence addict? if i enjoyed striking up conversations with strangers everywhere i went and talked their ear off in a friendly manner, would i be a social addict? some people enjoy looking at text and images on a screen during downtime in their day, it's a habit. a potentially useful one that helps connect to a world outside of immediate physical space, should _we_ disincentivize public escapism? what about reading or drawing in public then? perhaps it's dangerous if people look at each other too much. and why don't _we_ standardize clothing so that everyone feels more equal. and do _we_ really need so many words, how about _we_ reduce it down to a few hundred useful ones and just stop teaching the others. who is we, we is us, and us is we. if you give people freedom to do a lot of different things, they may not make good individual choices which can lead to bad collective actions. if they were individual choices they will be individually self-corrected. do you value freedom or outcomes? because you're going to need a big hammer to get all your outcome nails nice and flat. alternatively you need to build your civilization on a different moral foundation, something like social harmony or public good. you might find a strong central government, no immigration, with an insulated and culturo-ethnically homogeneous population with a tendency towards being socially and fiscally conservative, family oriented and not prone to large unfunded liabilities in domestic ponzi schemes and international military escapades; as pre-requisites to your social engineering utopian fantasies. america is about fuck you and fuck you too.
remind_me_again 8y ago
How about a facebook app for that?</sarcasm>. I quit Facebook 2 years ago, and my usage of phone has decreased dramatically. But there are other apps, or website (i.e. HN) that pulls you in. I do not believe you can cure the addiction until you fully get rid of your phone, and that is definitely not realistic. We just need to identify biggest offenders (i.e. Facebook) and just quit.
agumonkey 8y ago
We need more tech to solve tech
lukethomas 8y ago
I built an app to help people take a digital detox ~ 3 years ago (https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/01/12/need-unplug-there-app-for-that/goAD2TP3rjiQNTWA8qg3YP/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/01/12/need-unplug-...) The biggest issue we ran into was that we didn't have API access to build something effective (at least from limiting smartphone access). We had to hack something together and it didn't work out long-term. If the tech giants cared enough about this, they would create APIs and empower devs to build stuff to help.
dubya123 8y ago
"Solving Heroin Addiction is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity." Even for the hyper-capitalists of HN this is beyond the pale
dominotw 8y ago
This problem cannot be solved by "market" 1. Get a kitchen timer, use pomodoro technique. 2. Realize that overcoming something is a not a viable longterm solution. If you overcome something once you have to keep overcoming it. Better option is to spend your energy figuring out how to achieve your goal by not overcoming, eg: to replace netflix, develop a passion for cooking, replace netflix with cooking.
kgilpin 8y ago
I’m glad to see this getting ridiculed on this forum. I would be happy to see more critique of the attitude that the problems created by irresponsible technology can be solved with more technology. The driver of the “phone addiction” problem is obviously direct economics. Companies are organized around profit, and more phone time means more profit (especially in ad-driven models like Facebook). So how about addressing the problems by looking at root causes?
- snarf21 8y ago
  There is also the question of how many people who have a tech addiction really care. Some people like staring at constant news feeds of garbage as opposed to leaving their couch and interacting with the world. Just like some people like smoking, and similarly there will always be companies more than happy to profit from your addiction.
- peacetreefrog 8y ago
  Exactly, so what if a company/product's source of profit was helping people get off their phones?
timwaagh 8y ago
years ago i wanted to create a restricted version of android for this purpose. so i downloaded the AOSP source. it turns out it is not so easy though and quite intimidating for your average coder. but maybe some sv wizards will create such a 'restricted device'.
jacquesm 8y ago
It's hard to deal with addiction when the opposition has armies of psychologists working together to make the experiences you have online as addictive as possible.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  Exactly. People always treat things like addiction as a sign of a weak character but there are many, many very intelligent people working on exploiting very weakness of human personalities. Things are totally stacked against the individual. It's pretty sad that a lot of the best and brightest software engineers of our generation are working at places like Google and Facebook whose ultimate purpose is to push as many ads as possible.
ddtaylor 8y ago
Having worked on a product for 3 years that attempts to target this market I can tell you the sad reality, is that nobody really cares. Sure, there are clickbait headlines and companies/parents will feign interest, but when it comes to actually paying for a product or making any tangible change to usage habits, our numbers prove that nobody even tries. For full disclosure our product turns the Internet off until they complete goals like studying, completing quizzes, commiting to GitHub, etc. Our first launch was a DNS only solution which we assumed lacked usage because people had to change their DNS address to one we spun up for them. It lacked usage and we assumed it was because it was "too technical" for parents. Next we create an iOS app that worked out of the box as a VPN without any setup. We don't even ask the users to register in any way or pay anything. Lastly we created a Chrome extension because it's the easiest way for tons of kids with Chromebooks to use. Long story short, after multiple re-launches and trying to get feedback the overall result is that it's an almost impossible task to get parents or kids to change their habits, even if they "want" to. They will make up excuses and quit nearly instantly.
- kaffeemitsahne 8y ago
  Just because not many people liked your product doesn't mean nobody cares about the problem.
  - ddtaylor 8y ago
    I think most of the "caring" is a token effort. Too many businesses benefit from tech/mobile addiction. It's a form of green-washing IMO.
- sooheon 8y ago
  Maybe the target should be adults getting it for themselves? Think AA more than parental control.
  - ddtaylor 8y ago
    Adults are much harder to reach because they can always simply go buy a new computer or phone and circumvent any measures put in place to help them.
rellui 8y ago
I feel like the article missed something: the tech companies often design their apps to be addictive. It's part of their product.
the_greyd 8y ago
From Why Haven't We Met Any Aliens http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/why_we_havent_met_any_aliens/ http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/why_we_havent_met_an... "I suggest a different, even darker solution to the Paradox. Basically, I think the aliens don’t blow themselves up; they just get addicted to computer games. They forget to send radio signals or colonize space because they’re too busy with runaway consumerism and virtual-reality narcissism. They don’t need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today. Once they turn inwards to chase their shiny pennies of pleasure, they lose the cosmic plot. They become like a self-stimulating rat, pressing a bar to deliver electricity to its brain’s ventral tegmental area, which stimulates its nucleus accumbens to release dopamine, which feels…ever so good."
steve-benjamins 8y ago
It's an opportunity— not sure it's a market opportunity.
buboard 8y ago
How many businesses can I remember around addictions? What s the most famous anti-TV addiction company? Anti-cigarettes? Anti-sex addiction? If it's none, then the opportunity is not underappreciated. Making an anti-addiction product is by its nature the opposite of a sellable product. And the people who have the frontal lobe to willingly go against their addiction, have already solved their problem.
- SonicSoul 8y ago
  Nicotine Patch/Gum
  - buboard 8y ago
    I thought about it , but those came about recently, when cigarettes are known as an active health hazard. So it's more like a health product. We are not yet at the point that tech addiction is considered a health hazard, and imho it will never be, because tech adapts, evolves and improves productivity, and at any give point tech-less life will be a poorer alternative.
    - beat 8y ago
      Tech is absolutely a health hazard. Driving while texting is measurably as dangerous as driving drunk. It kills people.
      - buboard 8y ago
        Easily solvable with voice recognition or just calling people on hands free. Cutting out usage of phone for that is overkill.
      - britch 8y ago
        That's definitely a dangerous situation that involves tech, and to some extent tech addiction, but is different from smoking which in all cases has a negative effect on your heath.
      - 8y ago
jhabdas 8y ago
> On Instagram, we’re bombarded with beautiful people living perfect lives. On Twitter, we’re bombarded with short, angry arguments about politics among other things. On YouTube, we’re bombarded with endlessly interesting videos that keep playing until we stop them. On Instagram you can pilfer videos by sending them to Telegram and downloading the MP4 straight to your device. On YouTube you can pilfer videos by downloading them with NewPipe. On Twitter you can collect the best GIFs from @archillect by forwarding them once again to Telegram. Once you're outside the grips of the ad industry you can once again enjoy this tech without feeling bad you haven't hit your 5000 friend limit on Fakebook.
hasbroslasher 8y ago
I think thesis is absolutely ridiculous: "we need a group of new businesses to rise up and make money off of solving tech addiction" There's not a lot of money to be made in stopping people from self-abstaining from pleasure. If someone wants to quit drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes, then they can do so without having to pay for much (assuming they're not vulnerable to D.T. health wise). And while there's marginal amounts of money to be made off of nicotine patches or AA literature, these products pale in comparison to the amount of money generated by the alcohol and tobacco industries.
tw1010 8y ago
Gaps in the market are unfortunately not the same as gaps in the psychology landscape.
sfrj 8y ago
I am going to create a Digital detox Startup and I am going to call it Camping. Hahahaha.... I promise no phone signal for 30 days.
- charlieflowers 8y ago
  Funny ... they have it for teens, and they call it "Wilderness Therapy." (To be fair, it also involves focused therapy from professionals).
beat 8y ago
I dunno about "market opportunity", but I think very strongly about what Cal Newport said... that we have to train ourselves to be comfortable with boredom. The device is very attractive at boring moments, like standing in line at a grocery store, or waiting for someone. Which causes a habit, when then interrupts you when you're actually doing something useful.
blueyes 8y ago
Unfortunately, we're in a system with asymmetric incentives for product development. Products that addict us get more of our time and attention, and therefore higher DAU, VC funding and ad dollars. Products that help us fight addiction are in a negative feedback loop. The better they work, the less we need them or pay attention to them. The gains that users realize from addiction-fighting apps are external, often in the analog world, and by definition harder to monetize and monitor, because they have left the platform.
narrator 8y ago
I leave my phone in airplane mode most of the day and only use 4g in emergencies. I have e-books and podcasts downloaded, but the interactive stuff like forums I only do when I have wi-fi. This means when I'm out and about I'm off wifi and only listening to podcasts or reading ebooks at least. If someone wants to call me when I'm out of the office, they can schedule a call. Picking up the phone is annoying because I get a couple of spam calls a day.
chasedehan 8y ago
Would anyone care about an OS (probably Android) that specifically limited the ability to use the time-suck apps (like snap/gram/tube), but still left the ability to use other things (like music/maps/camera/texting/etc)? I tried disconnecting a while back, but felt like those were the things i was lacking because I was using a flip phone and was really frustrating. I have actually been considering picking back up this idea to focus on modifying to allow for curated list of allowable apps.
- JansjoFromIkea 8y ago
  Freedom synced with my phone and laptop does something close enough to this for me to suffice. The shame of turning off their timed blockages is enough to keep me away from time sinks.
stochastic_monk 8y ago
The cynical part of me thinks that they’re only doing this to make themselves look better in the face of reducing the quality of life of their customers.
peacetreefrog 8y ago
A lot of people here are skeptical, saying basically "if people don't want to be addicted to technology they should just stop using it", but I think that's simplistic. You could say the same thing about eating, "if you're not happy with your weight then just stop eating so much" The fact that's technically true doesn't mean there's no market for diet books or people should have to do it all on their own. Weight watchers, for example, has a 4B market cap.
varrock 8y ago
> An application could provide a user frequent alerts to get back to work or put the phone down if they’ve been using it for 10 minutes or more. Taking the idea further, there could be some financial or other incentive (maybe the user escrows some money toward buying something they want) if they hit their goal. I recall an application made for college students that rewarded them for not using their phone during their lectures. I believe it it called Pocket Points [0]. [0]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-points-college-rewards/id908136685?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-points-college-reward...
- passivepinetree 8y ago
  I used Pocket Points briefly in college. Their main selling point was the integration with businesses around campus: if you accrued x number of "points" by locking your phone with the app open while on campus, you got discounts or occasionally free products at stores/restaurants nearby. However, it was really susceptible to being gamed. I remember walking to campus right before bedtime, locking my phone, and then going to sleep, giving me points all night. Eventually they tried to fix this by giving more points during "peak" hours (normal class times) and drastically reducing points given during off hours, but it was still pretty easy to game. My college self really appreciated the discounts, but I don't think it was a great business model (I have no idea how they profited off the app) and I'm not sure if they're still around.
btbuildem 8y ago
> The real answer to solving technology addiction is the answer to sustainably solving most problems: innovation spurred by capitalism. On the contrary -- innovation spurred by capitalism is what sublimated the addictive aspects of human nature into a profit-making mechanism for the tech giants.
nishantvyas 8y ago
very famous investor once said, unless your startup has one of "Seven deadly sins"; its hard to be sticky (or successful). So if one is planning around tech addiction, make it about, pride & envy not about how its good for your life overall....
cousin_it 8y ago
It could be as simple as not owning any devices with shiny colored screens, which are addictive to the eyes, and instead owning only grayscale e-ink screens. I wish laptops and phones like that were easier to get.
sharadov 8y ago
They've already solved it in China https://www.techly.com.au/2017/10/30/china-military-style-boot-camps-internet-addiction-rehabilitation/ https://www.techly.com.au/2017/10/30/china-military-style-bo... Pictures are priceless! Too bad, it won't fly with the entitled brats that we have here!
dawhizkid 8y ago
More broadly, I think we need an analogy to the "Primary Care Physician" for mental health (would include addiction treatment here). I'm in SF, and 1) having a hard time finding therapists that my insurance covers and 2) when I do find one many are completely booked and not accepting new patients.
munificent 8y ago
> The real answer to solving technology addiction is the answer to sustainably solving most problems: innovation spurred by capitalism. A new group of businesses needs to emerge that gives us the choice to help ourselves and rediscover the benefits of disconnection. > Dieting may be the most helpful analogy here. In the US, many of us have poor diets either on occasion or frequently. Few of us have the discipline to eat well for long periods of time to optimize our health. When we gain too much weight, we pay for a personal trainer or a diet program or a book or an app to get us back on track. Is this article real, or a brilliantly crafted satire of Silicon Valley VC culture? The weight loss industry is worth $66 billion and obesity in the US has never been worse than it is today. Arguing that we should let unfettered capitalism solve tech addition like it's solved obesity is... I don't even know how to finish that sentence it's such an inane fly-in-the-face-of-reality statement. > People that use those solutions to effectively curb negative habits will end up happier and more prosperous than others, just like it’s always been. How’s that for incentive? Completely insufficient is how it is. If long-term incentives were enough to prevent people from making poor short-term decisions, we wouldn't have addiction or obesity in the first place. The tool that has been effective at getting a large number of people to make choices that favor long-term outcomes over short-term ones is culture. By attaching a heavy negative moral weight to a poor short-term choice, we leverage the emotional wiring people already have so that they are able to push against their urge and do what's best for their long-term health and for society as a whole. Cigarette use has cut in half over the past fifty years. That didn't happen because tobacco startups invented innovative technology, and it didn't happen because we outlawed them. It happened because we shifted the culture. Instead of cigarettes being cool, sophisticated, and intellectual, they are gross, selfish, and dirty.
- projektir 8y ago
  > The tool that has been effective at getting a large number of people to make choices that favor long-term outcomes over short-term ones is culture. I'm not sure about that. Seems like most developed countries, with all their different cultures, are following the obesity trend. Obesity became more accepted after it got more common (because shaming every obese person became non-viable), it seems, not the other way around.
LeicaLatte 8y ago
Meditation apps aren't doing the job apparently.
ex3xu 8y ago
Thoughtmaybe has a 2013 documentary called Web Junkie that shows how the Chinese handle it for their teenagers: https://thoughtmaybe.com/web-junkie/ https://thoughtmaybe.com/web-junkie/
rapnie 8y ago
For solutions in this realm you could go to the non-profit Center for Humane Technology [0] (formerly Time Well Spent) and join their community [1] (I did). The organisation led by Tristan Harris (ex Google) is influential on high levels of government and corporations. [0] https://humanetech.com https://humanetech.com [1] https://community.humanetech.com https://community.humanetech.com
fipple 8y ago
What solved my tech addiction was losing my phone and buying a $50 phone at Best Buy to replace it until I could get a new iPhone. Using it was so aggravating that I started using my phone rarely. So I kept it. And hardly use the piece of shit at all.
flerchin 8y ago
The market opportunity is in finding these people, and exploiting their problems. F2P games seem to have it covered though.
ken 8y ago
> Dieting may be the most helpful analogy here. In the US, many of us have poor diets either on occasion or frequently. Few of us have the discipline to eat well for long periods of time to optimize our health. When we gain too much weight, we pay for a personal trainer or a diet program or a book or an app to get us back on track. I agree that food could a useful analogy, but I thought the consensus was that diets don't (in general) work. Paying for a personal trainer isn't scalable, and I don't see creating a job as a Personal Anti-Technologist as a salable solution.
- fraudsyndrome 8y ago
  Diet in this sense might be different. If you want to gain weight, you'd have to change your diet to eating more for a specific period. Vice versa for losing it. If you want to change the way you eat, that's not to diet - that requires a lifestyle change in the way you see food. Meaning, you have to discipline yourself to eat well for life (generally).
rootoor 8y ago
The idea that you can “fix” or “solve” software addiction with more software is silly to me. First, This requires users to setup this software. Then, there is nothing stopping them from working around or disabling it at anytime. If the software can’t be disabled then the user will switch to another product. If someone is really trying to curtail their software addiction, actual dedication will be required, not just the activation of some tool that they can easily disable with a few taps. And because these tools will likely not work for the majority of people, Apple and Google have every incentive to incorporate them into their operating systems and gobble up the market share (which they are already doing in their latest operating systems). A more traditional and therapeutic approach to the problem makes more sense to me, though it won’t scale well and the market doesn’t seem very big
- viraptor 8y ago
  > Then, there is nothing stopping them from working around or disabling it at anytime. Sure. But I think there's a bit of false dichotomy in this comment: you're either free or addicted with no control. There's a whole spectrum of behaviours. I do sometimes sink more time than I'd like into some service, and blocker apps solve that issue for me. Even a reminder: "do you really want to do this" would be enough in some cases. People I know have also been happy with a Facebook app blocker that monitors usage time. You can uninstall all of that, but none of the people I'm taking about are completely out of control - just want to improve our lives. If someone's literally addicted with no self control, that's a completely different issue though.
- Faark 8y ago
  You position sounds incredible uncreative to me. The article says "we need people working on that". Your response is "blocking won't work, thus software can't help". Someone else already commented that it might does, indeed. But I'd expect there to be way more stuff that might help. Just one thought on the spot: look at fitness or weight loss helpers. They use tons of psychological tricks to motivate you. Tracking alone could have a huge benefit, both to show what's wasted ("you spend x hrs on reddit this week. Instead, you could have y") and to measure improvements. Just imagine what other options there are.
antcas 8y ago
1) How can a business model be created whose incentives align with their customers in the addiction-treatment market? Curing addicts permanently means losing customers. Ineffective treatment could mean repeat customers and therefore more business. How do existing rehab centers handle this conflict of interests? 2) Personal Anecdote. There's no way I can stop using the internet right now and keep my livelihood, but I've had some success over the last week cutting my reddit usage down to 0 non-productive minutes. Every time I navigate to reddit, unless it is very explicitly work-related, I close the tab immediately and log the incident in a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet records date, time, duration, how I got there, and (most importantly) what I'm going to work on instead. This is my second time quitting reddit. The first time was cold-turkey with no process, lasted over a year before I got sucked back in via the subreddits. This method gives me more a feeling of control and forces me to be mindful of my usage. Wish me luck.
habosa 8y ago
I wouldn't say I am "addicted" to tech more than most people my age (26) but I was using my phone a lot more than I liked so I have taken some steps lately. The early results are encouraging that you can in fact use software to control yourself (no particular order). Here are some things I did and the results. 1. Hacker News "noprocrast" setting. This is something underrated in HN, but I have set it so I can only visit every 6 hours and that my session can only be 20m long. That basically means one visit per day. I find myself not going on as much because I am "saving" my one visit for later. 2. Android "Digital Wellbeing" timers. I set a timer on my phone to limit me to 1hr of Google Chrome per day. This is my #1 most-used app. The first few days I was always hitting my limit. After a week or two my brain subconsciously started knowing about the limit and now my natural usage is < 1hr. 3. Work Profile + Do Not Disturb + Grayscale. At night my phone goes full grayscale and turns off all non-urgent notifications. My work profile also turns off. The combination of these three things makes me much less likely to engage after 9pm and get ready to wind down for bed. 4. I made an app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.habosa.notificationbox https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.habosa.not...) that helps me take control of notifications. Instead of blocking them, the app puts them in an inbox-like format. I can check them all at the end of the day without missing them entirely or letting them bother me at work. I do this for apps like NYTimes that surface interesting things but that I don't need to know about urgently. Overall I am seeing a lot of progress! I find myself more able to, for instance, wait for the bus without playing on my phone. Hopefully over time I'll get better and better.
laurex 8y ago
Is the problem to be solved actually "tech addiction" or is it really "feeling like time was spent in a way that was unsatisfying or even self-destructive?" In other words, the market opportunity isn't really "tech that curbs tech usage," it's more "helping me to feel like doing something restorative, meaningful, or rewarding, whether it's tech-based or not." Addiction itself rarely is treated simply by removing the substance: there's psychological reasons why a person is attracted to checking out versus being present or mindful. Treating the cause is quite a different proposition.
fipple 8y ago
As with all addictions, peddling the drug is going to be far more lucrative than peddling the cure.
adamsea 8y ago
> “Dieting may be the most helpful analogy here.” Considering the massive flimflam industry around dieting, deceptive food company practices to make unhealthy food seem healthy, and the proliferation of ‘food deserts’ or parts of the country where finding healthy food at the grocery store (let alone a restaurant) is a challenge, dieting seems like the worst possible analogy. Unless it is an analogy for how to create an industry to profit off of human weakness and struggle without actually solving the root issue. Then it is an excellent analogy.
Pica_soO 8y ago
Sorry, but - eh, how to say this. You wouldn't consult your dealer, to help you with addiction. Because your dealer will help you only insofar as it helps you to earn a optimum of money.

289 points by smb111 8y ago

spuz 8y ago

Thanks for posting this. I've believed for a long time that tech addiction is a solvable problem and technology itself can be part of that solution. I have lots of ideas about how this would work, if only I could break my own addiction to technology and start implementing them.

kiostech 8y ago

App application helps you to stay focus https://www.forestapp.cc/en/ https://www.forestapp.cc/en/ P.S Not advertisement

harryf 8y ago

It's what Paul Graham was saying back in 2010... http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html

jeffbarg 8y ago

"While Apple, Google, and Facebook are beginning to offer tools to better understand how much we use their devices and services, those companies can’t viably fix technology addiction because their businesses prevent them from doing so." Apple's business doesn't. I think Screen Time and App Limits will likely become two of Apple's main competitive advantages going forward because of it -- there's no way Google or Facebook could offer such a product for their services in any meaningful way without destroying their core business.

ryandvm 8y ago
Not sure about Facebook, but Google is already beta testing exactly what you're talking about: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/6/17655520/google-digital-wellbeing-beta-now-available-dashboard-app-timers-wind-down https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/6/17655520/google-digital-we... I have it on my Pixel 2 and it works great.
- emsy 8y ago
  I'm curious whether the data is stored locally or if it's also sent to Google, possibly to be used against your interest.
maxxxxx 8y ago
"Apple's business doesn't. I think Screen Time and App Limits will likely become two of Apple's main competitive advantages going forward because of it -- there's no way Google or Facebook could offer such a product for their services in any meaningful way without destroying their core business. " Sure Apple depends on screen addiction too. Why would somebody buy a $1000+ phone and then not use it?
- eswat 8y ago
  Think a smarter, more sustainable usage model phone companies should depend on is controlled use, not addiction. You eventually just get an unhappy userbase that’s about to burn themselves out of your ecosystem with the latter. Think this is what the OP is hinting at since Apple has pricing models that are less reliant on the latter.

Bakary 8y ago

In my own experience struggling with addiction I've found that it is a symptom rather than a cause. Once you craft a life that is actually stimulating the tech loses its hold over you pretty quickly, if not instantly (for example when you go on a weekend outing in nature and completely forget your phone). Of course, the time and energy wasted due to the dysfunctional behavior presents a chicken-and-egg roadblock against making this happen. I recall the studies showing the difference between Vietnam veterans who got hooked on dope and those who didn't, as well as Bruce K. Alexander's Rat Park experiments. The other thing I've learned is that control or blocking tools can be self-defeating, since they transform fighting the addiction into a perpetually unfinished task ("It's been Y time since I did X") that naturally remains to the forefront of your brain and leaves you vulnerable if you end up in an environment without those restrictions. It's ultimately easier to address the underlying causes of trying to escape through technology.

beaconstudios 8y ago
Addiction seems to fill emotional voids like unresolved trauma, depression, ennui, unfulfilled ambition and so on. I think much like a bad habit, an addiction needs to be replaced by something else that fills the gap but is positive instead (for example exercise, working, learning, or sports) otherwise the gap is still there and will exert continued pressure to return to the addiction. That or (where possible) removing the gap entirely by working through the root emotional cause.
- mbrock 8y ago
  The Buddhist perspective seems to be that we suffer from a general addiction ("craving"). Meditation is supposed to shine a light on that. Since few people ever just sit down without entertainment or work, the meditation posture becomes a way to notice (and subdue) one's constant tendency to reach for something to enjoy or accomplish. This craving comes as part of "attachment", the way our minds are hooked up into all kinds of duties, relations, plans, hopes, fears, etc. Mental life is like swinging from branch to branch in a jungle of obligations, desires, aversions, gossip, anxieties... In modern parlance it's the phenomenon that makes us feel constantly stressed about all kinds of stuff, in the most general sense, up to and including the end game vision that one day we're going to die, so we better get to work. Every time I check something off my todo list, two more things appear... Without buying into Buddhist metaphysics, I do think it points out something that's extremely palpable in these days, thus the recent (fading?) trending interest in meditation and mindfulness. Another lucid perspective on it is McLuhan's, like in a brief essay called "The Agenbite of Outwit." http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/mcluhan-studies/v1_iss2/1_2art6.htm http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/mcluhan-studies/v1_iss2/1_... With the telegraph Western man began a process of putting his nerves outside his body. Previous technologies had been extensions of physical organs: the wheel is a putting-outside-ourselves of the feet; the city wall is a collective outering of the skin. But electronic media are, instead, extensions of the central nervous system, an inclusive and simultaneous field. Since the telegraph we have extended the brains and nerves of man around the globe. As a result, the electronic age endures a total uneasiness, as of a man wearing his skull inside and his brain outside. We have become peculiarly vulnerable. The year of the establishment of the commercial telegraph in America, 1844, was also the year Kierkegaard published The Concept of Dread. Mental health in the age of the internet indeed seems like a major topic.

666lumberjack 8y ago

It seems inevitable to me that as ML-based algorithms get better at exploiting the quirks in our monkey brains and keeping us on platforms for longer and longer periods, somebody will need to develop a counter-algorithm that lives in a browser extension or (somehow) on your device and is able to recognize unhealthy engagement patterns and make you aware of them. Actually implementing such a thing in a way that's performant and trustworthy and marketing it to people who maybe aren't consciously aware of how easily the brain can be manipulated involves a number of tough challenges, but it seems like it'll have to happen eventually.

kurthr 8y ago
Yeah, just use the "performant" frustration tools invented by the telcos and great firewall... slow down the load/scroll, jerk the video, lose images, drop UI events, add typos, force reloads. Soon you'll hate that "social" interaction game. It's difficult but not impossible on HN :^D
jon_richards 8y ago
I predict that one day we'll all have our AI best friend. They'll teach and socialize us when we're young, guide and consol us as we grow, and protect us from misinformation and adversarial AIs throughout our lives. Picking the brand of AI for your kid will be the most important decision you ever make for them.
- kurthr 8y ago
  I suspect that your parents will choose for you, and the majority will be ad supported.
  - b_tterc_p 8y ago
    I would wager less ad based, more political / religious / nationalist indoctrinated AI personalities.
- mrfredward 8y ago
  The ultimate bubble. Your "friend" won't ever disagree, nor share any viewpoint other than what parents want the child to hear. The only interesting point will be to see what the "friend" chooses to do when the parents and the child disagree. AI "friends" could be terrific in teaching children, but there is a danger in consumers taking the short-sighted approach and buying the A.I. which is most likable. Imagine how spoiled kids will be when most of their "friends" always agree and serve them like butlers. People love to pay for indulgence, but never want to pay for tough-love.

gregw2 8y ago

example of underappreciation: chrome no longer respects /etc/hosts so I can't block my addictions the simple way

danielbln 8y ago
Version 69.0.3497.100 (current at time of writing) on MacOS still respects the /etc/hosts.
chrisjack 8y ago
use firefox. And the bonus is that you won't have all the privacy consern chrome pose.

air7 8y ago

Ironic reading this during an undeserved HN binge...

DanielBMarkham 8y ago

I disagree. Here's why: This is a problem I've been toying with for more than six years, ever since I realized that tech's purpose is to gain control of as much attention span across the planet as possible. It can't help it. Since I teach how to organize project/product/org information, I played a little mental game: what is the minimum amount of tech I would need and still stay connected to the rest of the planet? My answer? A piece of hardware that displays plaintext, in e-ink format (to prevent the necessary communications around "upgrade your device now!"). Plain lists of stuff I consume that I can manipulate with my fingers (to prevent keyboards, audio sensors, kinnect, etc from getting their foot in the door). No visible O/S or apps. (No updates, patches, app-store chicanery etc.). Important: no way to install anything or to consume any other content besides what's on the app. No links, no follow-ups. Just what I have predetermined I want to see. UI? A plain, unadorned list and for each list item some more plaintext. But what about conversations? Saving stories? Doing research? Well, most of that is social-media addictive nonsense (you really don't need to Tweet "OMG!", but some it is required. For that we have buttons and a microphone. The microphone (and WiFi) have real, wired switches to turn them off and on that can't be disabled by software. (More telemetry problems here). Four buttons. That's it. The device should try to sort your list and associated text, so you need a way of saying "I like this kind of thing" and "I don't like this kind of thing" so it can learn. You need a way of saving something for later to download, research, study, reply, and so on. The fourth button was controversial. I felt there were times when an immediate response was needed. So you push the button and speak. No writing. No speech-to-text. You say in your own words what you want. (Lots of problems here about nuance in text and non-verbal communication) Somehow that gets to the other person. Never worked that out. At this point you have enough features that I'd argue you could support 80%+ of the activity people use the net for. Would you still need to research stuff? Sure. Play games? Sure. Converse in realtime about things you're interested in? Sure. But those are different physical units. You need to make both a mental decision and a physical effort to do those things. It should be apparent visually to yourself and others that these are the types of activities you are now engaged in. There can be no confusion, either internally or to an outside observer. Tech is supposed to be about helping others. Instead it's become about making more tech. This was a fun exercise. Made me realize how far we are, and continue to go, from what we really need. It may be an unappreciated market, but a lot of other folks have tried and failed. I got zero interest in this, aside from people who also had a problem with tech addiction. I believe the problem for most is: where's the payout? To be done correctly, this may work best as a philanthropic effort, not a startup. This isn't an under-appreciated market. This is the place with the greatest current gap between human suffering and people willing to help end it. ( This is when I started writing about the problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349447 I even made a crappy demo video as part of my first "real" F# project: https://vimeo.com/14460868 https://vimeo.com/14460868 )

sfrj 8y ago

You think the solution to this is to make an app? Looool

mthom 8y ago
You're on HN, my man, the solution is never not an app!
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  With an exit plan of selling to Facebook with a $2 billion valuation
sjg007 8y ago
Yep. There's a couple ideas here. It's a bit convoluted though.

zelias 8y ago

What do you guys think about a bar/club that's inside a big Faraday cage?

ds0 8y ago

"The real answer to solving technology addiction is the answer to sustainably solving most problems: innovation spurred by capitalism." I find that when capitalism spurs innovations, those innovations work toward the sustenance of capitalism as a system, which I take some issue with. If some plucky startup solves tech addiction, it will be in a way that makes you a more effective worker or consumer.

mrfredward 8y ago
>If some plucky startup solves tech addiction, it will be in a way that makes you a more effective worker or consumer. Well, that might not be ideal, but it might be better than the alternatives. My last employer paid me a dollar for every day that I tracked a workout meeting certain criteria and synced it with the insurers app. Employers save on insurance by having healthy employees, so they pass on the incentive. Not exactly utopian, and there are privacy concerns, but overall it was positive, even if the motivation behind it wasn't really because they care. But now try to think of an alternative. No one else has the incentive to do it, except government. And if government did it, it would probably end up being a complicated tax deduction only taken by wealthy people who hire accountants or would involve some Orwellian government-backed tracking app. I'm not really afraid of capitalism doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. The beauty of capitalism is how often self-interested people are incentivized to work for mutual benefits. If the free-market actually has incentives to fix smart-phone addiction, that's great. If the incentives aren't strong enough, then we'll probably end up with a government solution involving GDPR type clumsiness, but that might be the best we can do.

golergka 8y ago

How come the article that has "market opportunity" in the title doesn't use the term "marketing" even once? Shouldn't that be the central theme of this - how do you sell this to people?

Karunamon 8y ago

The fact that they called this "tech addiction" rather than "smartphone (app) addiction" was rather disappointing, given the latter was the entire focus of the article. I clicked the link wondering how they were going to differentiate addiction from reliance; as in, if we were all EMP'd tomorrow and set back to agrarian days, a lot of people will die, and not just from starvation.

goplusplus 8y ago

The idea of productizing tech addiction recovery funded by the VCs which fund tech addiction enabling products seems slightly disingenuous.

mrfredward 8y ago
VCs invest to make money, and I just can't see what the revenue model would be. There's no ad revenue to be had in convincing people to stop looking at their phones. Get people to pay for an app? Any price other than free means crossing a pretty major psychological barrier.
- harryf 8y ago
  Parents would pay. I'm a parent and have already paid for services to help me manage my kids phone addiction
- mbrock 8y ago
  People actually pay a lot of money for meditation retreats, which are basically just camps where you get to stop looking at Twitter for a while.
maxxxxx 8y ago
It's like fast food and soda companies sponsoring efforts against obesity :-).
- rargulati 8y ago
  It's more like the creator and distributor of a popular opioid turning around and selling the drugs that help you wean off. Oh wait... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/09/08/the-man-who-made-billions-of-dollars-from-oxycontin-is-pushing-a-drug-to-wean-addicts-off-opioids/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.952a99c7af39 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/09/08/t...
- beat 8y ago
  Read Michael Pollan's books and essays about the "healthy" food market, and marketing "magic ingredients" that make factory junk food "healthy". Omega-3! Chia seeds! Vitamins!

commandlinefan 8y ago

You'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

jjgreen 8y ago
Not so easy with those powerful texting thumbs

Nasrudith 8y ago

We used to have far more focus rooms - they were called offices. Tech is a convenient scapegoat for environments unconducive to focus and lack of interest in the task. It can also help with emotional state management which is useful over just banging your head against the wall. One use I find for HN is that it is usually pretty good at getting me in a rational and focused state of mind - it is similar to the benefit of a dedicated office vs your home PC. Productivity research in general suffers from a beancounting mentality in treating everything like it is turning an oar.

maxxxxx 8y ago
I definitely notice that. In my cube farm it's so loud that I often can't focus so I start reading Hacker News or stare at my phone as distraction. When I work from home I actually work because it's nice and quiet.
- ramblerman 8y ago
  I also find that I can read Hacker News far better at home ;)

pelario 8y ago

It is at least funny how therapy is not even mentioned in the article...

cerealbad 8y ago

smartphones are in their smoking is cool so do it everywhere phase. the novelty will wear off. i enjoy patiently waiting in silence. if i am travelling on public transport, or sitting in waiting room, or standing in a long queue, i find my personal quiet contrasted by the various background noises relaxing and beneficial. i can remain aware of my surrounding/map, people and objects, clocks and time, scenery. i can play memorization, prediction or pattern games, revisit some old problem or simply turn my brain off and let the time pass without incident. am i a silence addict? if i enjoyed striking up conversations with strangers everywhere i went and talked their ear off in a friendly manner, would i be a social addict? some people enjoy looking at text and images on a screen during downtime in their day, it's a habit. a potentially useful one that helps connect to a world outside of immediate physical space, should _we_ disincentivize public escapism? what about reading or drawing in public then? perhaps it's dangerous if people look at each other too much. and why don't _we_ standardize clothing so that everyone feels more equal. and do _we_ really need so many words, how about _we_ reduce it down to a few hundred useful ones and just stop teaching the others. who is we, we is us, and us is we. if you give people freedom to do a lot of different things, they may not make good individual choices which can lead to bad collective actions. if they were individual choices they will be individually self-corrected. do you value freedom or outcomes? because you're going to need a big hammer to get all your outcome nails nice and flat. alternatively you need to build your civilization on a different moral foundation, something like social harmony or public good. you might find a strong central government, no immigration, with an insulated and culturo-ethnically homogeneous population with a tendency towards being socially and fiscally conservative, family oriented and not prone to large unfunded liabilities in domestic ponzi schemes and international military escapades; as pre-requisites to your social engineering utopian fantasies. america is about fuck you and fuck you too.

remind_me_again 8y ago

How about a facebook app for that?</sarcasm>. I quit Facebook 2 years ago, and my usage of phone has decreased dramatically. But there are other apps, or website (i.e. HN) that pulls you in. I do not believe you can cure the addiction until you fully get rid of your phone, and that is definitely not realistic. We just need to identify biggest offenders (i.e. Facebook) and just quit.

agumonkey 8y ago

We need more tech to solve tech

lukethomas 8y ago

I built an app to help people take a digital detox ~ 3 years ago (https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/01/12/need-unplug-there-app-for-that/goAD2TP3rjiQNTWA8qg3YP/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/01/12/need-unplug-...) The biggest issue we ran into was that we didn't have API access to build something effective (at least from limiting smartphone access). We had to hack something together and it didn't work out long-term. If the tech giants cared enough about this, they would create APIs and empower devs to build stuff to help.

dubya123 8y ago

"Solving Heroin Addiction is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity." Even for the hyper-capitalists of HN this is beyond the pale

dominotw 8y ago

This problem cannot be solved by "market" 1. Get a kitchen timer, use pomodoro technique. 2. Realize that overcoming something is a not a viable longterm solution. If you overcome something once you have to keep overcoming it. Better option is to spend your energy figuring out how to achieve your goal by not overcoming, eg: to replace netflix, develop a passion for cooking, replace netflix with cooking.

kgilpin 8y ago

I’m glad to see this getting ridiculed on this forum. I would be happy to see more critique of the attitude that the problems created by irresponsible technology can be solved with more technology. The driver of the “phone addiction” problem is obviously direct economics. Companies are organized around profit, and more phone time means more profit (especially in ad-driven models like Facebook). So how about addressing the problems by looking at root causes?

snarf21 8y ago
There is also the question of how many people who have a tech addiction really care. Some people like staring at constant news feeds of garbage as opposed to leaving their couch and interacting with the world. Just like some people like smoking, and similarly there will always be companies more than happy to profit from your addiction.
peacetreefrog 8y ago
Exactly, so what if a company/product's source of profit was helping people get off their phones?

timwaagh 8y ago

years ago i wanted to create a restricted version of android for this purpose. so i downloaded the AOSP source. it turns out it is not so easy though and quite intimidating for your average coder. but maybe some sv wizards will create such a 'restricted device'.

jacquesm 8y ago

It's hard to deal with addiction when the opposition has armies of psychologists working together to make the experiences you have online as addictive as possible.

maxxxxx 8y ago
Exactly. People always treat things like addiction as a sign of a weak character but there are many, many very intelligent people working on exploiting very weakness of human personalities. Things are totally stacked against the individual. It's pretty sad that a lot of the best and brightest software engineers of our generation are working at places like Google and Facebook whose ultimate purpose is to push as many ads as possible.

ddtaylor 8y ago

Having worked on a product for 3 years that attempts to target this market I can tell you the sad reality, is that nobody really cares. Sure, there are clickbait headlines and companies/parents will feign interest, but when it comes to actually paying for a product or making any tangible change to usage habits, our numbers prove that nobody even tries. For full disclosure our product turns the Internet off until they complete goals like studying, completing quizzes, commiting to GitHub, etc. Our first launch was a DNS only solution which we assumed lacked usage because people had to change their DNS address to one we spun up for them. It lacked usage and we assumed it was because it was "too technical" for parents. Next we create an iOS app that worked out of the box as a VPN without any setup. We don't even ask the users to register in any way or pay anything. Lastly we created a Chrome extension because it's the easiest way for tons of kids with Chromebooks to use. Long story short, after multiple re-launches and trying to get feedback the overall result is that it's an almost impossible task to get parents or kids to change their habits, even if they "want" to. They will make up excuses and quit nearly instantly.

kaffeemitsahne 8y ago
Just because not many people liked your product doesn't mean nobody cares about the problem.
- ddtaylor 8y ago
  I think most of the "caring" is a token effort. Too many businesses benefit from tech/mobile addiction. It's a form of green-washing IMO.
sooheon 8y ago
Maybe the target should be adults getting it for themselves? Think AA more than parental control.
- ddtaylor 8y ago
  Adults are much harder to reach because they can always simply go buy a new computer or phone and circumvent any measures put in place to help them.

rellui 8y ago

I feel like the article missed something: the tech companies often design their apps to be addictive. It's part of their product.

the_greyd 8y ago

From Why Haven't We Met Any Aliens http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/why_we_havent_met_any_aliens/ http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/why_we_havent_met_an... "I suggest a different, even darker solution to the Paradox. Basically, I think the aliens don’t blow themselves up; they just get addicted to computer games. They forget to send radio signals or colonize space because they’re too busy with runaway consumerism and virtual-reality narcissism. They don’t need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today. Once they turn inwards to chase their shiny pennies of pleasure, they lose the cosmic plot. They become like a self-stimulating rat, pressing a bar to deliver electricity to its brain’s ventral tegmental area, which stimulates its nucleus accumbens to release dopamine, which feels…ever so good."

steve-benjamins 8y ago

It's an opportunity— not sure it's a market opportunity.

buboard 8y ago

How many businesses can I remember around addictions? What s the most famous anti-TV addiction company? Anti-cigarettes? Anti-sex addiction? If it's none, then the opportunity is not underappreciated. Making an anti-addiction product is by its nature the opposite of a sellable product. And the people who have the frontal lobe to willingly go against their addiction, have already solved their problem.

SonicSoul 8y ago
Nicotine Patch/Gum
- buboard 8y ago
  I thought about it , but those came about recently, when cigarettes are known as an active health hazard. So it's more like a health product. We are not yet at the point that tech addiction is considered a health hazard, and imho it will never be, because tech adapts, evolves and improves productivity, and at any give point tech-less life will be a poorer alternative.
  - beat 8y ago
    Tech is absolutely a health hazard. Driving while texting is measurably as dangerous as driving drunk. It kills people.
    - buboard 8y ago
      Easily solvable with voice recognition or just calling people on hands free. Cutting out usage of phone for that is overkill.
    - britch 8y ago
      That's definitely a dangerous situation that involves tech, and to some extent tech addiction, but is different from smoking which in all cases has a negative effect on your heath.
    - 8y ago

jhabdas 8y ago

> On Instagram, we’re bombarded with beautiful people living perfect lives. On Twitter, we’re bombarded with short, angry arguments about politics among other things. On YouTube, we’re bombarded with endlessly interesting videos that keep playing until we stop them. On Instagram you can pilfer videos by sending them to Telegram and downloading the MP4 straight to your device. On YouTube you can pilfer videos by downloading them with NewPipe. On Twitter you can collect the best GIFs from @archillect by forwarding them once again to Telegram. Once you're outside the grips of the ad industry you can once again enjoy this tech without feeling bad you haven't hit your 5000 friend limit on Fakebook.

hasbroslasher 8y ago

I think thesis is absolutely ridiculous: "we need a group of new businesses to rise up and make money off of solving tech addiction" There's not a lot of money to be made in stopping people from self-abstaining from pleasure. If someone wants to quit drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes, then they can do so without having to pay for much (assuming they're not vulnerable to D.T. health wise). And while there's marginal amounts of money to be made off of nicotine patches or AA literature, these products pale in comparison to the amount of money generated by the alcohol and tobacco industries.

tw1010 8y ago

Gaps in the market are unfortunately not the same as gaps in the psychology landscape.

sfrj 8y ago

I am going to create a Digital detox Startup and I am going to call it Camping. Hahahaha.... I promise no phone signal for 30 days.

charlieflowers 8y ago
Funny ... they have it for teens, and they call it "Wilderness Therapy." (To be fair, it also involves focused therapy from professionals).

beat 8y ago

I dunno about "market opportunity", but I think very strongly about what Cal Newport said... that we have to train ourselves to be comfortable with boredom. The device is very attractive at boring moments, like standing in line at a grocery store, or waiting for someone. Which causes a habit, when then interrupts you when you're actually doing something useful.

blueyes 8y ago

Unfortunately, we're in a system with asymmetric incentives for product development. Products that addict us get more of our time and attention, and therefore higher DAU, VC funding and ad dollars. Products that help us fight addiction are in a negative feedback loop. The better they work, the less we need them or pay attention to them. The gains that users realize from addiction-fighting apps are external, often in the analog world, and by definition harder to monetize and monitor, because they have left the platform.

narrator 8y ago

I leave my phone in airplane mode most of the day and only use 4g in emergencies. I have e-books and podcasts downloaded, but the interactive stuff like forums I only do when I have wi-fi. This means when I'm out and about I'm off wifi and only listening to podcasts or reading ebooks at least. If someone wants to call me when I'm out of the office, they can schedule a call. Picking up the phone is annoying because I get a couple of spam calls a day.

chasedehan 8y ago

Would anyone care about an OS (probably Android) that specifically limited the ability to use the time-suck apps (like snap/gram/tube), but still left the ability to use other things (like music/maps/camera/texting/etc)? I tried disconnecting a while back, but felt like those were the things i was lacking because I was using a flip phone and was really frustrating. I have actually been considering picking back up this idea to focus on modifying to allow for curated list of allowable apps.

JansjoFromIkea 8y ago
Freedom synced with my phone and laptop does something close enough to this for me to suffice. The shame of turning off their timed blockages is enough to keep me away from time sinks.

stochastic_monk 8y ago

The cynical part of me thinks that they’re only doing this to make themselves look better in the face of reducing the quality of life of their customers.

peacetreefrog 8y ago

A lot of people here are skeptical, saying basically "if people don't want to be addicted to technology they should just stop using it", but I think that's simplistic. You could say the same thing about eating, "if you're not happy with your weight then just stop eating so much" The fact that's technically true doesn't mean there's no market for diet books or people should have to do it all on their own. Weight watchers, for example, has a 4B market cap.

varrock 8y ago

> An application could provide a user frequent alerts to get back to work or put the phone down if they’ve been using it for 10 minutes or more. Taking the idea further, there could be some financial or other incentive (maybe the user escrows some money toward buying something they want) if they hit their goal. I recall an application made for college students that rewarded them for not using their phone during their lectures. I believe it it called Pocket Points [0]. [0]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-points-college-rewards/id908136685?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-points-college-reward...

passivepinetree 8y ago
I used Pocket Points briefly in college. Their main selling point was the integration with businesses around campus: if you accrued x number of "points" by locking your phone with the app open while on campus, you got discounts or occasionally free products at stores/restaurants nearby. However, it was really susceptible to being gamed. I remember walking to campus right before bedtime, locking my phone, and then going to sleep, giving me points all night. Eventually they tried to fix this by giving more points during "peak" hours (normal class times) and drastically reducing points given during off hours, but it was still pretty easy to game. My college self really appreciated the discounts, but I don't think it was a great business model (I have no idea how they profited off the app) and I'm not sure if they're still around.

btbuildem 8y ago

> The real answer to solving technology addiction is the answer to sustainably solving most problems: innovation spurred by capitalism. On the contrary -- innovation spurred by capitalism is what sublimated the addictive aspects of human nature into a profit-making mechanism for the tech giants.

nishantvyas 8y ago

very famous investor once said, unless your startup has one of "Seven deadly sins"; its hard to be sticky (or successful). So if one is planning around tech addiction, make it about, pride & envy not about how its good for your life overall....

cousin_it 8y ago

It could be as simple as not owning any devices with shiny colored screens, which are addictive to the eyes, and instead owning only grayscale e-ink screens. I wish laptops and phones like that were easier to get.

sharadov 8y ago

They've already solved it in China https://www.techly.com.au/2017/10/30/china-military-style-boot-camps-internet-addiction-rehabilitation/ https://www.techly.com.au/2017/10/30/china-military-style-bo... Pictures are priceless! Too bad, it won't fly with the entitled brats that we have here!

dawhizkid 8y ago

More broadly, I think we need an analogy to the "Primary Care Physician" for mental health (would include addiction treatment here). I'm in SF, and 1) having a hard time finding therapists that my insurance covers and 2) when I do find one many are completely booked and not accepting new patients.

munificent 8y ago

> The real answer to solving technology addiction is the answer to sustainably solving most problems: innovation spurred by capitalism. A new group of businesses needs to emerge that gives us the choice to help ourselves and rediscover the benefits of disconnection. > Dieting may be the most helpful analogy here. In the US, many of us have poor diets either on occasion or frequently. Few of us have the discipline to eat well for long periods of time to optimize our health. When we gain too much weight, we pay for a personal trainer or a diet program or a book or an app to get us back on track. Is this article real, or a brilliantly crafted satire of Silicon Valley VC culture? The weight loss industry is worth $66 billion and obesity in the US has never been worse than it is today. Arguing that we should let unfettered capitalism solve tech addition like it's solved obesity is... I don't even know how to finish that sentence it's such an inane fly-in-the-face-of-reality statement. > People that use those solutions to effectively curb negative habits will end up happier and more prosperous than others, just like it’s always been. How’s that for incentive? Completely insufficient is how it is. If long-term incentives were enough to prevent people from making poor short-term decisions, we wouldn't have addiction or obesity in the first place. The tool that has been effective at getting a large number of people to make choices that favor long-term outcomes over short-term ones is culture. By attaching a heavy negative moral weight to a poor short-term choice, we leverage the emotional wiring people already have so that they are able to push against their urge and do what's best for their long-term health and for society as a whole. Cigarette use has cut in half over the past fifty years. That didn't happen because tobacco startups invented innovative technology, and it didn't happen because we outlawed them. It happened because we shifted the culture. Instead of cigarettes being cool, sophisticated, and intellectual, they are gross, selfish, and dirty.

projektir 8y ago
> The tool that has been effective at getting a large number of people to make choices that favor long-term outcomes over short-term ones is culture. I'm not sure about that. Seems like most developed countries, with all their different cultures, are following the obesity trend. Obesity became more accepted after it got more common (because shaming every obese person became non-viable), it seems, not the other way around.

LeicaLatte 8y ago

Meditation apps aren't doing the job apparently.

ex3xu 8y ago

Thoughtmaybe has a 2013 documentary called Web Junkie that shows how the Chinese handle it for their teenagers: https://thoughtmaybe.com/web-junkie/ https://thoughtmaybe.com/web-junkie/

rapnie 8y ago

For solutions in this realm you could go to the non-profit Center for Humane Technology [0] (formerly Time Well Spent) and join their community [1] (I did). The organisation led by Tristan Harris (ex Google) is influential on high levels of government and corporations. [0] https://humanetech.com https://humanetech.com [1] https://community.humanetech.com https://community.humanetech.com

fipple 8y ago

What solved my tech addiction was losing my phone and buying a $50 phone at Best Buy to replace it until I could get a new iPhone. Using it was so aggravating that I started using my phone rarely. So I kept it. And hardly use the piece of shit at all.

flerchin 8y ago

The market opportunity is in finding these people, and exploiting their problems. F2P games seem to have it covered though.

ken 8y ago

> Dieting may be the most helpful analogy here. In the US, many of us have poor diets either on occasion or frequently. Few of us have the discipline to eat well for long periods of time to optimize our health. When we gain too much weight, we pay for a personal trainer or a diet program or a book or an app to get us back on track. I agree that food could a useful analogy, but I thought the consensus was that diets don't (in general) work. Paying for a personal trainer isn't scalable, and I don't see creating a job as a Personal Anti-Technologist as a salable solution.

fraudsyndrome 8y ago
Diet in this sense might be different. If you want to gain weight, you'd have to change your diet to eating more for a specific period. Vice versa for losing it. If you want to change the way you eat, that's not to diet - that requires a lifestyle change in the way you see food. Meaning, you have to discipline yourself to eat well for life (generally).

rootoor 8y ago

The idea that you can “fix” or “solve” software addiction with more software is silly to me. First, This requires users to setup this software. Then, there is nothing stopping them from working around or disabling it at anytime. If the software can’t be disabled then the user will switch to another product. If someone is really trying to curtail their software addiction, actual dedication will be required, not just the activation of some tool that they can easily disable with a few taps. And because these tools will likely not work for the majority of people, Apple and Google have every incentive to incorporate them into their operating systems and gobble up the market share (which they are already doing in their latest operating systems). A more traditional and therapeutic approach to the problem makes more sense to me, though it won’t scale well and the market doesn’t seem very big

viraptor 8y ago
> Then, there is nothing stopping them from working around or disabling it at anytime. Sure. But I think there's a bit of false dichotomy in this comment: you're either free or addicted with no control. There's a whole spectrum of behaviours. I do sometimes sink more time than I'd like into some service, and blocker apps solve that issue for me. Even a reminder: "do you really want to do this" would be enough in some cases. People I know have also been happy with a Facebook app blocker that monitors usage time. You can uninstall all of that, but none of the people I'm taking about are completely out of control - just want to improve our lives. If someone's literally addicted with no self control, that's a completely different issue though.
Faark 8y ago
You position sounds incredible uncreative to me. The article says "we need people working on that". Your response is "blocking won't work, thus software can't help". Someone else already commented that it might does, indeed. But I'd expect there to be way more stuff that might help. Just one thought on the spot: look at fitness or weight loss helpers. They use tons of psychological tricks to motivate you. Tracking alone could have a huge benefit, both to show what's wasted ("you spend x hrs on reddit this week. Instead, you could have y") and to measure improvements. Just imagine what other options there are.

antcas 8y ago

1) How can a business model be created whose incentives align with their customers in the addiction-treatment market? Curing addicts permanently means losing customers. Ineffective treatment could mean repeat customers and therefore more business. How do existing rehab centers handle this conflict of interests? 2) Personal Anecdote. There's no way I can stop using the internet right now and keep my livelihood, but I've had some success over the last week cutting my reddit usage down to 0 non-productive minutes. Every time I navigate to reddit, unless it is very explicitly work-related, I close the tab immediately and log the incident in a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet records date, time, duration, how I got there, and (most importantly) what I'm going to work on instead. This is my second time quitting reddit. The first time was cold-turkey with no process, lasted over a year before I got sucked back in via the subreddits. This method gives me more a feeling of control and forces me to be mindful of my usage. Wish me luck.

habosa 8y ago

I wouldn't say I am "addicted" to tech more than most people my age (26) but I was using my phone a lot more than I liked so I have taken some steps lately. The early results are encouraging that you can in fact use software to control yourself (no particular order). Here are some things I did and the results. 1. Hacker News "noprocrast" setting. This is something underrated in HN, but I have set it so I can only visit every 6 hours and that my session can only be 20m long. That basically means one visit per day. I find myself not going on as much because I am "saving" my one visit for later. 2. Android "Digital Wellbeing" timers. I set a timer on my phone to limit me to 1hr of Google Chrome per day. This is my #1 most-used app. The first few days I was always hitting my limit. After a week or two my brain subconsciously started knowing about the limit and now my natural usage is < 1hr. 3. Work Profile + Do Not Disturb + Grayscale. At night my phone goes full grayscale and turns off all non-urgent notifications. My work profile also turns off. The combination of these three things makes me much less likely to engage after 9pm and get ready to wind down for bed. 4. I made an app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.habosa.notificationbox https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.habosa.not...) that helps me take control of notifications. Instead of blocking them, the app puts them in an inbox-like format. I can check them all at the end of the day without missing them entirely or letting them bother me at work. I do this for apps like NYTimes that surface interesting things but that I don't need to know about urgently. Overall I am seeing a lot of progress! I find myself more able to, for instance, wait for the bus without playing on my phone. Hopefully over time I'll get better and better.

laurex 8y ago

Is the problem to be solved actually "tech addiction" or is it really "feeling like time was spent in a way that was unsatisfying or even self-destructive?" In other words, the market opportunity isn't really "tech that curbs tech usage," it's more "helping me to feel like doing something restorative, meaningful, or rewarding, whether it's tech-based or not." Addiction itself rarely is treated simply by removing the substance: there's psychological reasons why a person is attracted to checking out versus being present or mindful. Treating the cause is quite a different proposition.

fipple 8y ago

As with all addictions, peddling the drug is going to be far more lucrative than peddling the cure.

adamsea 8y ago

> “Dieting may be the most helpful analogy here.” Considering the massive flimflam industry around dieting, deceptive food company practices to make unhealthy food seem healthy, and the proliferation of ‘food deserts’ or parts of the country where finding healthy food at the grocery store (let alone a restaurant) is a challenge, dieting seems like the worst possible analogy. Unless it is an analogy for how to create an industry to profit off of human weakness and struggle without actually solving the root issue. Then it is an excellent analogy.

Pica_soO 8y ago

Sorry, but - eh, how to say this. You wouldn't consult your dealer, to help you with addiction. Because your dealer will help you only insofar as it helps you to earn a optimum of money.