The Rise of Addictive Technology with Adam Alter, Seattle Town Hall

Welcome to the age of behavioral addiction. We obsess over our emails, Instagram likes, and Facebook feeds; we binge on TV episodes and YouTube videos; and we spend an average of three hours each day using our smartphones.

In Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, Adam Alter, a professor of psychology and marketing at NYU, tracks the rise of behavioral addiction and explains why so many of today’s products are simply irresistible.

These miraculous devices have drastically improved our access to information and our ability to communicate, yet their extraordinary magnetism clearly has some detrimental effects, particularly for today’s youth, many of whom have grown up with near-constant access to this technology.

Alter offers strategies for how we can mitigate the damaging effects of addictive products on the well-being of ourselves and our children.