Driven to distraction: Smartphones are strongly addictive
Smartphones are strongly addictive
TECHNOLOGY HAS ENABLED people to fill every moment of their lives with a stimulus of one sort or another. It has eliminated the boredom of solitude, replacing it with a continuous need for instant gratification. Or rather, as Tristan Harris, a former product manager at Google, puts it, it is technology companies that have made this trade for humans, designing platforms, games and apps to keep them hooked.This article appeared in the Special report section of the print edition under the headline “Driven to distraction”From the February 11th 2017 editionDiscover stories from this section and more in the list of contentsExplore the edition