by Adam Alter
First published 2017
Half of Americans are addicted to at least one behavior. We check emails obsessively, chase Instagram likes, and binge YouTube videos. We use smartphones three hours daily and work longer hours each year. Half of us fear a broken phone more than a broken bone. Millennial children spend so much time with screens they cannot interact comfortably with other humans. NYU psychology and marketing professor Adam Alter tracks how behavioral addiction has risen and why modern products prove so compelling. These digital tools connect people across vast distances, but their magnetic pull is deliberately engineered. Companies continuously refine their products until users find them nearly impossible to resist. Alter reverse engineers the mechanics of behavioral addiction to show how we can use these same principles beneficially. The book explains how to improve communication, manage money better, and establish healthy boundaries between work and personal life while protecting ourselves and our children from the most harmful effects.
Genres: psychology, addiction, business, self-help
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: non-fiction
Setting: America, New York University
Period: 21st-century
368 pages · Hardcover · Penguin Press
Content warnings: addiction, mental-illness