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…
This is what I've realized about myself and addition. I get into new things fast and tend to over commit or over indulge early on and once I realize it pull back. I've got it under control now because I realized my excessive drinking or drug usage was in large part because I was bored. Shit television or movies are much more entertaining when drunk or high. Social engagements that are not mentally stimulating to me a…
It increasingly looks to me like the problem with vices like this (anything from Facebook to pot) is exactly what you describe.
Too often, we talk about them like they ruin people's lives directly. There are a hundred thinkpieces taking correlations like "men who work shorter hours play more games" or "unhappiness is correlated with Facebook use" and concluding "therefore games drive you to not work and social media makes you unhappy!" But we're not talking about things with physical mechanisms or direct brain-chemical impacts here, and I wouldn't expect all the Skinner Box design in the world to make "flashy lights on a screen" more compelling than a tasty dinner or a good hug.
Rather, social media, games, or endless Reddit scrolling slot all too easily into downtime and unsatisfying situations. My experience with them has always been that of a mild sedative; they create a tolerable baseline state for what might otherwise be intolerable situations. (I think the analogy to drinking prior to a crap TV show or a boring event is a great one. It's not alcohol addiction or abuse in any standard sense, but it's still alcohol legitimizing some other bad situation.)
That can still make tech a problem inasmuch as it stops people from breaking out of those situations. But if the situation is externally imposed then it's playing a positive role, and if the situation can be broken with an offering tech doesn't interfere with then it's not playing a negative role. I do think there are people who would benefit from cutting back on tech, and I think we underestimate the impact of push notifications and instant focus switching on our attention. But I also think we neglect a lot of cases where tech is a palliative for some other problem we would be better off attacking directly.