
Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity - smb111
https://loupventures.com/solving-tech-addiction-is-an-underappreciated-market-opportunity/
======
ddtaylor
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.

~~~
Paul-ish
Maybe your product worked too well, and people don't actually want to change
their behavior. They just feel like they should. Same with eating right or
exercising.

~~~
kazagistar
In which case the real market is for things that seem like they help. Ideally
as a subscription that you can forget about like a gym.

------
buboard
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
Nicotine Patch/Gum

~~~
buboard
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
Tech is absolutely a health hazard. Driving while texting is measurably as
dangerous as driving drunk. It kills people.

~~~
jlarocco
Not that you're wrong, but doing _anything_ while driving, besides driving, is
a health hazard, so I'm not sure that's a great example.

~~~
beat
It's a great example, because it's actually measurably affecting accident
rates.

~~~
jlarocco
Yeah, but: [http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/eating-driving-80-car-
ac...](http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/eating-driving-80-car-accidents-
study-shows-article-1.427796)

But then on the other hand: [http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-
infrastructur...](http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-
infrastructure/too-many-pedestrians-injured-by-looking-at-their-phones.html)

------
Bakary
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.

~~~
CPLX
Yeah I dunno about that.

A month or so ago, I took a two week trip across France and Spain, it was one
of the most lovely experiences of my life, staying in great places, eating
amazing food, etc. It was honestly about as wonderful and stimulating of an
experience as I've ever had.

About halfway through it I started to realize that I was still attached to my
phone. I was sitting on trains reflexively checking Twitter for the disastrous
updates in American politics instead of looking out the window at the
Pyrenees, or in a museum constantly reaching for my pocket.

In my personal story I took drastic action. I added parental controls to the
phone, deleted some apps, made a commitment to keep the phone out of the
bedroom, and other stuff, and have noticed a drastic improvement in mental
health.

I don't discount your experiences, they likely work for you and I believe you.
Just like how many people can go into bars without becoming alcoholics, but
there are other people who need to take affirmative steps towards abstinence,
and avoid certain people places and things, as they say.

But that's the nature of an addictive cycle. Not sure it actually in fact
matters how great your life is, once you've acquired that addiction it's a
habit that requires being affirmatively broken.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _A month or so ago, I took a two week trip across France and Spain, it was
> one of the most lovely experiences of my life, staying in great places,
> eating amazing food, etc. It was honestly about as wonderful and stimulating
> of an experience as I 've ever had._

But were they really?

The thing I'm no longer afraid to admit about myself - I don't enjoy such
stuff. I don't derive much pleasure from views of nature, don't like typical
tourist destinations (for instance, last year I went to Pripyat, and liked it
_much_ better than Lviv or Kiev). I don't enjoy eating local cousine, I prefer
regular commercial-grade pizza, thank you. I tried pretending that I like
"normal" things for a long time, but this cognitive dissonance isn't worth it.

I still agree with GP here - if the things you do are fulfilling, you'll be
less inclined to pick up the phone. For me, it won't be France or Spain, but
it will be a programming side project. It won't be hiking, but it will be
going out with an air gun and shooting a bit. I don't feel an addiction to
tech then, but get me back to the office, and suddenly the addiction is back
too.

To be clear: I'm not discounting the addictiveness of consumer-oriented tech -
but I do feel that it's often easier to break the feedback loop by fixing the
other end of it.

~~~
CPLX
Yes they were really. It really was, literally, the thing in life I like to do
the most. I live to travel and see new places, it's the favorite activity I
ever engage in.

I just disagree with this whole idea that there HAS to be some "missing hole"
that phones fill. These apps are addictive, that's not really a secret they
are designed to be by teams of brilliant people.

It's possible that many heroin addicts have "holes" in their life that they
fill, but it's also pretty much a certainty that if you take a random person
and unwittingly feed them heroin for awhile telling them it's harmless,
they're going to have withdrawal symptoms if they stop.

I'm aware of the Rat Park study and it's interesting but it's pretty isolated
and hasn't been replicated, and either way it's just one intriguing
counterpoint, not dispositive.

It's often a misconception that 12 step programs talk about getting to "root
causes" first. They do, to some extent, but they always focus immediately and
completely on total abstinence until that has been achieved.

Then, the "root causes" stuff is really better described as picking up the
pieces of a broken life, and specifically a ton of broken relationships, since
the one thing all addicts have in common is a large number of close
relationships with people that they have ruined.

Sobriety in that context really isn't about getting to and fixing "root
causes" to be honest. It's more about setting up a set of current habits, and
social support, that are based around non addictive behaviors.

~~~
MetalGuru
_It 's possible that many heroin addicts have "holes" in their life that they
fill, but it's also pretty much a certainty that if you take a random person
and unwittingly feed them heroin for awhile telling them it's harmless,
they're going to have withdrawal symptoms if they stop._

What point are you even making here? You know there's a difference between
physical dependence and addiction, right? Someone who isn't a heroin addict
can easily stop taking it if they are weaned off. And heroin addicts relapse
all the time after physical withdrawals have subsided.

~~~
CPLX
> Someone who isn't a heroin addict can easily stop taking it if they are
> weaned off.

That's a bit dubious as a blanket statement. Perhaps you're creating a
distinction without a difference?

My point pretty much sums to "addictive things are addictive"

Yes, addiction is more nuanced than that, some people are exposed to addictive
things and don't get hooked.

But it seems like people in this thread are trying to advance this idea:

 _addiction = addictive thing + preexisting problem_

Therefore, the solution is to get rid of that preexisting problem and voila,
addiction is fixed.

I'm not sure I buy that. I'm sticking with the idea that certain substances,
or technologies, are inherently likely to create habits and dependency in most
humans who are exposed to them.

I count social media and heroin in that category.

~~~
__blockcipher__
>Perhaps you're creating a distinction without a difference?

There is certainly a difference. Your body, physically, will be fine without
heroin. But emotionally, you feel empty without it, and as soon as some
emotional trauma - stress, sadness, fear or despair rears its head, you
relapse. I guess you could argue that emotional need is no different than
physical need, but I don't think that's quite the point you're trying to make

------
the_greyd
From Why Haven't We Met Any Aliens
[http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/why_we_havent_met_an...](http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/why_we_havent_met_any_aliens/)

"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."

------
rootoor
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

~~~
Faark
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.

~~~
rootoor
My point isn’t that blocking won’t work, it’s that any software solution
provided probably won’t work for most people because it’s too easy to quit
with no accountability and then because it won’t work for most people, Apple
and Google have every incentive to implement it in their operating systems
(which they are already doing) and your business is gone

------
Nasrudith
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
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
I also find that I can read Hacker News far better at home ;)

------
dominotw
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.

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

~~~
mrfredward
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
Parents would pay. I'm a parent and have already paid for services to help me
manage my kids phone addiction

------
hasbroslasher
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.

------
laurex
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.

------
cerealbad
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.

------
jeffbarg
"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
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-
we...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/6/17655520/google-digital-wellbeing-
beta-now-available-dashboard-app-timers-wind-down)

I have it on my Pixel 2 and it works great.

~~~
emsy
I'm curious whether the data is stored locally or if it's also sent to Google,
possibly to be used against your interest.

------
harryf
It's what Paul Graham was saying back in 2010...
[http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html)

------
kgilpin
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
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.

------
habosa
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.not...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.habosa.notificationbox))
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.

------
666lumberjack
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.

~~~
jon_richards
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.

~~~
mrfredward
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.

~~~
jon_richards
>there is a danger in consumers taking the short-sighted approach and buying
the A.I. which is most likable.

There are far more dangers than just that, but what if you've been brought up
by an AI that taught you the self-control to avoid them?

The AIs will fight over their ability to influence you. The hope is that the
ones that use truth and reasoning will have an advantage, but there will
always be the groups that are stuck in some fantasy.

------
chasedehan
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
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.

------
peacetreefrog
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.

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

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

------
antcas
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.

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

------
dawhizkid
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.

------
spuz
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.

------
varrock
> 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-
reward...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-points-college-
rewards/id908136685?mt=8)

~~~
passivepinetree
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.

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

~~~
jjgreen
Not so easy with those powerful texting thumbs

------
lukethomas
I built an app to help people take a digital detox ~ 3 years ago
([https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/01/12/need-
unplug-...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/01/12/need-unplug-there-
app-for-that/goAD2TP3rjiQNTWA8qg3YP/story.html))

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.

------
ken
> 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
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).

------
adamsea
> “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.

------
blueyes
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
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.

------
jacquesm
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
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.

------
rapnie
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)

------
munificent
_> 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
> 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.

~~~
munificent
_> Seems like most developed countries, with all their different cultures, are
following the obesity trend._

Well, sure. But I don't think it's useful to compare obesity in one country
that has a surplus of easily available food with other countries that don't.

Hypothermia is rare in Samoa, but I don't think Sweden can learn much from
them about that fact.

------
Karunamon
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.

------
air7
Ironic reading this during an undeserved HN binge...

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

------
beat
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.

------
fipple
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.

------
ex3xu
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/)

------
ds0
"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
>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.

------
cousin_it
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.

------
golergka
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?

------
kiostech
App application helps you to stay focus
[https://www.forestapp.cc/en/](https://www.forestapp.cc/en/)

P.S Not advertisement

------
stochastic_monk
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.

------
LeicaLatte
Meditation apps aren't doing the job apparently.

------
gregw2
example of underappreciation: chrome no longer respects /etc/hosts so I can't
block my addictions the simple way

~~~
danielbln
Version 69.0.3497.100 (current at time of writing) on MacOS still respects the
/etc/hosts.

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

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

------
timwaagh
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'.

------
nishantvyas
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....

------
tw1010
Gaps in the market are unfortunately not the same as gaps in the psychology
landscape.

------
DanielBMarkham
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) )

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

------
dubya123
"Solving Heroin Addiction is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity."

Even for the hyper-capitalists of HN this is beyond the pale

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

------
btbuildem
> 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.

------
agumonkey
We need more tech to solve tech

------
jhabdas
> 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.

