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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

#141

Post by shimon »

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.

The best examples are probably in diet, e.g. Weight Watchers, and Jenny Craig. There's a huge industry around drug & alcohol rehab, though it's not easy to see which parts could support startup-type scale. A bunch of these needs are served in the healthcare industry, often with much room for improvement. Healthcare is a totally massive industry.

It's not an easy place to build a business, but there are lots of resources spent on these problems now. They affect families, businesses, and individuals. Figuring out how to line up these things and make a viable business is complex, but some people will figure it out.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#142

Post by [deleted] »

hollerith wrote: post #135
wccrawford wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dou…

[deleted]

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#143

Post by passivepinetree »

varrock wrote: post #127

> 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…

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.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#144

Post by CPLX »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #123
CPLX wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "h…

Fair enough. > I just disagree with this whole idea that there HAS to be some "missing hole" that phones fill. I don't think there is one either. I think there's a general sense of ennui growing in our society that is partly responsible here.

Or vice versa.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#146

Post by ip26 »

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…

I cut myself off time to time in various ways. I canceled home internet for a few months one time, another I switched to a flip phone for a month. I'll frequently remove Chrome from my phone. I have tried the greyscale thing many times. Etc.

What makes all this Hard is the plethora of legitimate use. When I canceled home internet, I was unable to log in to work from home (five minutes a day in the evenings helps keep the compute cluster rolling). When I switched to a flip phone I started cooking less- the smartphone had made planning meals & shopping easier. When I remove Chrome, inevitably a week or two later I'm on the road and want to book a hotel or find a campground or check on road construction. When I switch my phone to greyscale, weather charts & maps become impossible to read.

Personally, if I was working on code & my goalposts were a commit to GitHub- well, without access to stackoverflow I might never be able to finish.

All that said, thank you for your perspective. It is not hard to believe many people do not actually want to change.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#147

Post by mbrock »

mrfredward wrote: post #58
goplusplus wrote: post #21

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

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.

People actually pay a lot of money for meditation retreats, which are basically just camps where you get to stop looking at Twitter for a while.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#148

Post by loceng »

Jtsummers wrote: post #95
loceng wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The private market will do a far better job fixing the status quo than the government or industrial complexes will. Some "random guy that's making a startup" presumably would do things to be safe, and ethical, no? You can make generalizations and assumptions otherwise, though that isn't very helpful. If you've ever had the displeasure to experience the healthcare system, you'd learn too that "professionals" are indoc…

> Some "random guy that's making a startup" presumably would do things to be safe, and ethical, no? That's a very risky assumption to make. Ethics are often secondary considerations for engineer and business thinking (for better or worse). To the point that people advocate the removal of ethics courses from university STEM curricula (not sure how widespread this viewpoint is, but I've heard it my entire adult life, s…

I should have clarified/furthered my thoughts - and it's true you shouldn't by default trust a startup to do things safely or ethically, you should certainly do your due diligence that they aren't making claims that can't be backed up, nor are following processes (etc) that can do more than what is a pre-existing level of acceptable risk/harm.

Presumably however, if they're/a startup is expecting to survive in the long-term they'd need to be leveraged and connected with safety and people with the appropriate knowledge, because they should be scrutinized more thoroughly if they're involved with health. Otherwise they're going to die off - and hopefully without hurting too many people or getting too big, like where we could reference Theranos.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#149

Post by loceng »

yashap wrote: post #101
loceng wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The private market will do a far better job fixing the status quo than the government or industrial complexes will. Some "random guy that's making a startup" presumably would do things to be safe, and ethical, no? You can make generalizations and assumptions otherwise, though that isn't very helpful. If you've ever had the displeasure to experience the healthcare system, you'd learn too that "professionals" are indoc…

Anecdotal evidence, but I personally know quite a few people with mental health issues who’ve found psychiatrists very helpful. I don’t know anyone who has received significant help with mental health from a tech startup. Startups are great, but they aren’t the answer to everything.

Many of the tech startups currently are platforms to connect people to services - like psychiatrists.

Re: Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity

#150

Post by MetalGuru »

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…

You example of people going into bars and not becoming alcoholics isn't applicable because they aren't addicts... There's usually an underlying cause of addiction. But it doesn't have to be boredom like in OP's case. The steps you talk about taking towards abstinence are usually to reinforce different habits (which is done in addition to addressing the underlying cause). I do see the point you're making. I think addiction to your phone is a little unique. The behavior is so reinforced that it becomes second nature. Whereas, for example, picking up drugs is a much more deliberate/infrequent effort relative to pulling your phone out of your pocket. Which is probably why the conditioning of other habits is so important in that case. You have to deliberately rewire those deeply ingrained neural pathways.
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