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Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

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Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#131

Post by ip26 »

wccrawford wrote: post #50
Bakary wrote: post #6

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 agai…

I'm a gamer and about as attached to tech as you can be without actually having mental issues over it. My wife and I recently bought a house and I've been finding that I'd rather spend time fixing it up than playing games or doing other stuff with electronics much of the time. That doesn't mean that I've quit wholesale, though. I eventually get physically or mentally tired and want to just relax, and it's back to the…

actually improving our house has proven even more enjoyable

Plus you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

That was what completely killed my interest in any amount of game grind- it hit me mid-game that if I spent that time grinding my actual corporeal self, I'd have something to show for it after.

I've since improved my AeT mile pace (your "all-day" level) from around 15:00 to 10:00ish. (My dream/goal is to get to 7:00-8:00 at that level of exertion)

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#132

Post by paulcole »

ddtaylor wrote: post #60

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…

> it's an almost impossible task to get parents or kids to change their habits

This has been a known challenge for centuries. How did you address it during design of your product?

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#133

Post by callmeed »

charlieflowers wrote: post #128
buboard wrote: post #74

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.

Great point. But ... you can sell to parents. Their _job_ is to place helpful limits on their kids due to the fact that the kids' frontal lobes can't (yet?) do it for themselves. And "tech addiction" is a huge problem among teens.

In my experience as a parent, a lot of parents are just as bad as their kids when it comes to smartphone addiction, phubbing, or whatever you call it.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#134

Post by eikenberry »

SonicSoul wrote: post #81
buboard wrote: post #74

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.

Nicotine Patch/Gum

The addiction is to nicotine, not how you take it. While these are marketed as ways to quit they are really just alternative forms, much like nicotine vaping. It solves the major health issues with tobacco smoking/chewing but doesn't eliminate the addiction.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#135

Post by hollerith »

wccrawford wrote: post #50
Bakary wrote: post #6

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 agai…

I'm a gamer and about as attached to tech as you can be without actually having mental issues over it. My wife and I recently bought a house and I've been finding that I'd rather spend time fixing it up than playing games or doing other stuff with electronics much of the time. That doesn't mean that I've quit wholesale, though. I eventually get physically or mentally tired and want to just relax, and it's back to the…

(1) Professional help for addiction tends to be very expensive; in contrast, even buying a "specialty" smartphone to replace one's existing smartphone would cost much less.

(2) Even those who can easily afford the best professional help, e.g., Ben Affleck, end up having to go back into an in-patient addiction treatment center multiple times (3 times so far for Affleck, the first time's being in 2001), which casts doubt on the effectiveness of professional help.

(3) Some people need to advance in their career before they can afford professional help, but addiction makes it harder for a person to make progress in life. An affordable tech solution or partial-solution to addiction can help break this vicious cycle.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#136

Post by mbrock »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #63
dwaltrip wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could be the case for some people. For many others, there probably isn't some other root cause. It's the damn phone (and the apps on the phone) that is causing the problem.

Well. Um. But... craving an unnatural amount of attention __is__ a root cause. Wanting to seek conflict __is__ a root cause. Seeking to reconfirm my confirmation bias __is__ a root cause. FOMO __is__ a root cause. The device enables these things - take the device away and they will still exist - it does not create them. It doesn't make sense to blame the device for what is ultimately a human behavior issue. The abuse…

The root problem is just having been born.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#137

Post by ip26 »

CPLX wrote: post #19
Bakary wrote: post #6

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 agai…

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…

There's two pieces- you replace the stimulus, but you also have to break the old habit/reflex.

When traveling, thus far I've skipped getting local service. At least where we've been, WiFi is scarce, and as a result the phone remains a valuable planning tool but becomes useless as a dopamine drip.

It's more like how I imagine a pocket computer "should" be- you can find WiFi & make a video call back home, you can look up information about the town, you can store maps and boarding passes, play music, snap reference photos of signboards, check in with your bank, etc. But 98% of the time it's slumbering in a corner of your luggage (and getting great battery life)

FWIW, this ultimately led me to a relatively low-data plan at home, 500MB/mo, both to save money as well as to slow the drip.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#138

Post by [deleted] »

ddtaylor wrote: post #60

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…

[deleted]

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#140

Post by mbrock »

twodave wrote: post #25
Bakary wrote: post #6

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 agai…

There are definitely nuggets of truth to what you say, but I can say first hand that often the biggest challenge (after admitting your flaws, of course) in battling addiction is determining what exactly it is that I am missing. If things are going well in my life generally (marriage, work, friends, spiritually, etc) and yet I still feel the pull to this coping mechanism, why is that?! I don’t have any latent trauma t…

The internet is the most fascinating thing in the history of humanity. Of course you're "addicted" to it, why wouldn't you be? In the old days you would have been addicted to reading books, probably. Every second you're faced with the choice "should I do nothing in particular or should I reach into my pocket for the ultimate information entertainment device?" Why wouldn't you take a look at what the internet has to offer this minute? That might be a really interesting question to try to answer. Is there something else you'd rather be "addicted" to, some kind of less salty addiction, something more challenging?
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