The Cyber Effect

by Mary Aiken

  Just as substance addicts are constantly fighting urges provoked by related stimuli, the alerts and notifications on a mobile phone can cause its user to have an uncontrollable urge to check his or her device. It isn’t so different from the spinning of slot machine wheels or the intense cravings that someone with atypical sexual behavior may have for a fetish object. And while the only noticeable downside for your nice but irritating friend at lunch is that she has alienated you—when will you want to have lunch with her again?—in extreme cases an individual with a serious case of “mobile phone addiction” can become socially isolated and even financially ruined. Depending on where they live and their data plans, compulsive phone users can run up monthly charges that they can’t begin to afford.

  In the behavioral sciences, a phenomenon called signaling theory may help us to understand the irresistibility of mobile phones. Signaling theory, which originated with the study of animal behavior, explains why, for example, peahens choose to mate with peacocks with the biggest tails. Evolutionary psychologists have taken these cues for attention and selection, and have applied signaling theory to understanding human interactions. For instance, a number of research studies have shown that we are likely to be even more afraid of snakes and spiders than we are of large predatory animals such as bears, lions, and tigers. From an evolutionary perspective, this could be because snakes and spiders are difficult to spot, don’t make sounds or produce other cues, and are therefore more dangerous. It made sense that our ancestors would look carefully for poisonous creatures before sticking their hands into overgrown brush or putting their feet into moccasins (still a good idea today). Over time, this fear became an instinctive human reaction.

  There are several types of signal cues that communicate and attract—visual, acoustic, chemical, and tactile. The visual signals are limited and require a line of sight. A predatory female firefly lures in males with her flashing body light, and then preys upon them, just like the blinking and flashing of your mobile phone. Vervet monkeys have a language of distinct calls representing different types of threats, not unlike the ringtones or your early morning alarm. The waggle dance of the honeybee is a tactile cue to secure social bonds. Next time your phone vibrates in your pocket, you’ll feel its need to bond with you. The scent of a queen bee motivates and attracts her worker drones—and no doubt manufacturers are developing chemical signals for their mobile phones. Just wait until your device starts emitting those irresistible pheromones.

  Bria Dunham, in an excellent paper on the role of signaling theory in marketing, asks the question “Why are black iPhones sold with white earbuds?” She wonders if perhaps Apple has a backlog of white earbuds or perhaps white ones are cheaper or easier to produce. Eventually, Dunham settles on a more compelling explanation: White earbuds serve a signaling function. Those “telltale white earbuds indicate to passersby that the bearer ascribes to certain notions of coolness and style, engages willingly in some degree of conspicuous consumption, has the necessary resource control to afford a portable Apple device…that’s a lot of information content for less than an ounce of plastic and wire.”

  In other words, unconsciously we might want to display our phones to signal to others that we are part of the Apple Tribe—and have the requisite status and coolness levels to be accepted. This is herd behavior, of course, and there’s just as much of this present in real life, and perhaps even more online.

  So you’ve got your phone to prove (unconsciously) that you belong, and then…you find that you can’t stop checking the darn thing. The problem is great enough that there are now apps created to help compulsive email checkers break these patterns of behavior—or retrain themselves to start feeling “rewarded” by resisting the temptation to check their email in-box. One such technology is BreakFree, an app that will monitor the number of times you pick up your phone, check your email, and search the Web. It offers nonintrusive notifications and will provide you with an “addiction score” every day, every week, and every month—to track your progress. These incentives and rewards help motivate a change in behavior. It’s like going on a diet and standing on the scale every night for encouragement.

  BreakFree bills itself as a “first of its kind, revolutionary mobile app, aimed at controlling smartphone addiction and helping you maintain a healthy digital lifestyle.”

  The question is, are you breaking free from your compulsion, from yourself, or from the technology? Where does control lie? Who’s in charge of your behavior—you or your new app?

  Another app called Checky tracks how often you unlock your iPhone and encourages you to share your stats on Twitter and Facebook. It’s a spin-off from the app Calm, which sells itself with information about behavioral studies linking compulsive Internet use to ADHD, OCD, and other serious disorders. In the app description, Calm claims to have been created by “recovering” phone addict Alex Tew “to help individuals relax their minds.

  “Like many folks, I am pretty much addicted to my phone,” Tew says. “And now I know exactly how much: most days I check my phone over 100 times. In fact, yesterday I checked my phone 124 times. Today I’m at 76, so far. Having this new awareness makes it easier to control my phone usage. My new goal is to check less than 100 times a day.”

  In psychology, we call this mindfulness—adopting Buddhist terminology to describe the state of mind in which our attention is directed to the here and now, to what is happening in the moment before us, a way of being kind to ourselves and validating our own experience. As a way to stay mindful myself and keep track of my time online, I have set my laptop computer to call out the time, every hour on the hour, so that even as I’m working in cyberspace, where time flies, I am reminded every hour of the temporal real world. It’s very helpful for me, but a little unnerving for my colleagues who are at the other end of a Skype call and have to hear a voice suddenly call out, “Eleven o’clock!”

  Some other practical remedies to combat phone distraction—or even compulsive use—are to uninstall some of the beckoning apps on your phone screen. You can also go to your phone settings and turn off your notifications, which are how social media sites like Instagram, Twitter, and WhatsApp keep users checking constantly (because they want you to be checking constantly). Keeping your phone in “airplane mode” will silence it—and prevent you from accessing the Internet. Or you could just go cold turkey every so often and simply turn it off. I went to Bora Bora once and for the first time was in a country where I could not get cell coverage. For the first twenty-four hours I went through the predictable phases of mobile connectivity bereavement: disbelief, anger, panic, and night sweats—followed by exhaustion, then finally acceptance. I enjoyed a great five-day break after that, beautifully cellphone free.

  For those who are looking for philosophical or intellectual inspiration, a number of books deal with this new aspect of our lives and offer help and insights, including Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together, and William Powers’s Hamlet’s BlackBerry. Since 2006, Powers and his family have taken an “Internet Sabbath,” a day or two a week totally unplugged, which he believes has helped them remain mindful, less distracted, and in control of their use of technology. Addiction expert and pioneering psychologist Dr. Kimberly Young also recommends taking a forty-eight-hour “digital detox” every weekend. Plug your device into its charger and leave it there on Saturdays and Sundays. Even Pope Francis calls for an unplugged Christmas.

  The conundrum of “connectivity” is only bound to escalate. More mobile phones are sold each year than the year before. For 2017, the number of cellphone users is forecast to reach 4.77 billion. As the “usefulness” of these devices grows, more people will own them—and will be spending more time on them. We use them to read the news, connect with friends, photograph our lives, shop, manage our address books and calendars, and pay our bills. Meanwhile, we aren’t just learning how to use new devices, new apps, and new interfaces. We are learning how to live in a totally new environment—cyb
erspace—unlike any other we’ve been in before. When people talk about cellphone addiction, what they could be trying to express is something more serious than just compulsive checking of texts or emails. People feel addicted to technology itself.

  What Is Internet Addiction?

  It is so memorably ironic that one of the great pioneers of computer and online gaming, Dani Berry, remarked: “No one ever said on their deathbed, ‘Gee, I wish I had spent more time alone with my computer.’ ”

  Most studies of Internet addictive behavior—and there have been literally hundreds now—build upon the work of Dr. Young, who has been studying compulsive online behavior since 1994 and had the prescience to open the first Internet addiction clinic in the United States the following year. Young’s groundbreaking study compared the addiction-like behavior online with compulsion disorders and found many similarities. Her TED Talk on this subject in 2015 offers more interesting insights and warnings about what she calls the dangers of being “too connected.” In research papers and psychological journals, this behavior is sometimes called Internet use disorder and Internet addiction. As neither of these are formal conditions, I will use the broader term, Internet addictive behavior.

  In everyday language, the word addiction is applied to almost anything that a human being can have a craving for—from eating ice cream to singing in the shower. But to meet the clinical criteria for addiction, there must be a biochemical or chemical component. And for an individual to be diagnosed as having an addiction, they have to experience “withdrawal” and demonstrate a developing “tolerance.” In other words, there has to be evidence that an individual has an escalating need—wanting to use the Internet more and more. (That’s tolerance.) And when the Internet is removed, it causes distress (withdrawal).

  A telephone survey conducted by researchers at Stanford University a decade ago showed a rate of 12.5 percent of the U.S. adult population sample reporting they had “at least one problem” due to overuse of the Internet—often email checking, gaming, visiting cybersex sites, or shopping. The cravings they described were similar to drug and alcohol cravings among addicts. As the years have passed, that statistic—12 percent of the population—seems to have remained fairly consistent, but numbers vary depending on who’s doing the research, how the questions are asked, and how “addiction” or “misuse” or “excessive use” is defined. And what is considered “normal use” of the Internet can change from country to country. In South Korea, where the issue of Internet addictive behavior has mushroomed into a much-discussed, much-researched, much-diagnosed, and much-treated condition, studies indicate that about 10 percent of Korean teenagers are Internet addicts. In fact, some demonstrate difficulty in living their everyday lives due to the level of their addiction. Slightly higher numbers have been reported in China, with 13.7 percent of Chinese adolescent Internet users meeting the criteria for “addiction.” It has been reported that addictions to video games are the fastest-growing forms of Internet addiction, especially in China, Taiwan, and Korea. Interestingly, the highest numbers come from a sample of Italian adolescents—36.7 percent reportedly showed signs of “problematic Internet use.”

  A study of more than thirteen thousand adolescents in seven European countries in 2014 found that 13.9 percent of the participants demonstrated what was described as dysfunctional Internet behavior due to compulsive and frequent use that resulted in problems at home, in school, or in general. In a breakdown of excessive usage, social-networking sites like Facebook gobbled up a lot of their online time, along with watching videos or movies, doing homework, downloading music, sending instant messages, and checking email. Boys were significantly more likely to be at risk for the more serious condition of Internet addictive behavior, with boys from Spain and Romania scoring the highest rates, and boys from Iceland the lowest. The more educated the parents, the less likely the adolescents were to show problems.

  The study concluded that about 1 percent of adolescents exhibited Internet addictive behavior and an additional 12.7 percent were at risk. Together, this totaled 13.9 percent who could be said to demonstrate dysfunctional behavior. That means that more than one in ten of these adolescents are at risk.

  Along with Kimberly Young, another pioneer in the field of addiction to technology is Dr. David Greenfield, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and director of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction. In 2014, in conjunction with AT&T, Greenfield conducted a telephone survey of one thousand subscribers and concluded that around 90 percent of Americans would “fall in the category of overusing, abusing, or misusing their devices.” Greenfield, who is also the author of Virtual Addiction: Help for Netheads, Cyber Freaks, and Those Who Love Them, says the incidence of Internet addictive behavior among Americans is around 10 to 12 percent, according to his research.

  What are people checking on their phones? The first-quarter results for Facebook in 2016 showed that its users spent an average of fifty minutes a day on the site, which is, according to a New York Times article, just a bit less time than most people spend each day eating or drinking.

  In Greenfield’s survey of phone use alone, 61 percent of respondents said they slept with their mobile phone turned on under their pillow—or on a nightstand next to the bed. More than half described feeling “uncomfortable” when they forget their mobile phone at home or in the car, travel somewhere and are unable to get service, or break the phone. Greenfield’s research found that while 98 percent of respondents said that they are aware that texting while driving is dangerous, nearly 75 percent admitted having done it. This is effectively extreme risk-taking, the sort of lack of behavioral control that is usually associated with impulsive and compulsive behavior.

  A few years ago, a research colleague of mine proposed to do a study assessing mobile phone addiction. He prepared the research proposal and set about recruiting participants. The idea was that all participants would hand over their mobile phones for a period of time, five or six days, while their levels of anxiety would be measured. Not one person approached was willing to participate in the mobile phone separation-anxiety project—which sort of proves the case.

  So what can we do?

  Internet addictive behavior expert Kimberly Young recommends three strategies:

  1. Check your checking. Stop checking your device constantly.

  2. Set time limits. Control your online behavior—and remember, kids will model their behavior on adults.

  3. Disconnect to reconnect. Turn off devices at mealtimes—and reconnect with the family.

  In other words, it’s a revision of Timothy Leary’s 1960s mantra, Turn on, tune in, and drop out.

  Turn off, tune in, and reconnect.

  Compulsive Shopping

  There have been shopaholics forever, since the open-market takeout restaurants of the ancient Romans (yes, they had takeout in Pompeii). It is defined by compulsive, episodic purchasing of goods and is similar in many ways to gambling addiction. It is not recognized as a formal disorder due to insufficient evidence, but that would be cleared up quickly if a panel of experts studied a frantic sales line at midnight before Black Friday.

  Shopping addiction is also known as compulsive shopping, compulsive spending, and compulsive buying. It is often trivialized in the media, and the so-called fashion victims described are invariably female. Like other problematic behavior, it can be easily amplified and escalated online.

  Formerly, a tendency for compulsive shopping could be inhibited, and more easily self-regulated, by store hours, the need to transport oneself to a shopping site, not to mention the difficulty of carrying all those bags. A compulsive shopper, like anybody with a compulsion, has a lack of self-control. Now, because of technology, the obstacles to addictive shopping behavior have been removed. It is much harder for those with a tendency in this direction to resist.

  Psychologist Elizabeth Hartney, an addiction expert, has studied compulsive shopping and explains that shopp
ing online is particularly seductive to real-world shopping addicts because it appeals to many of the same motivations behind real-world shopping addiction, which are “the need to seek out variety in and information about products; to buy without being seen; to avoid social interactions while shopping; and to experience pleasure while shopping.”

  Recognize yourself?

  Why do people feel compelled to buy things they don’t need? And spend money they don’t have?

  The psychological explanations for compulsive shopping depend on the approach or school of thought. Traditionally, the behavior is believed to be triggered by a need to feel special or less lonely. Suffering from low self-esteem, the compulsive buyer is thought to be in a search for self—and looking for identity and stability in purchases, objects, or the social status that they feel is granted them once the new object is in their possession. Many suffer from associated disorders such as anxiety, depression, and poor impulse control.

  It is also a form of addiction that is strongly encouraged by our consumer culture and the corporations that drive it. As Donald Black, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, has pointed out, “In America, shopping is embedded in our culture; so often, the impulsiveness comes out as excessive shopping.”