IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020 - 7

are increasingly common, and correspondingly toxic.
Nevertheless, the addictive features of online gambling have also
made the transition to the videogame industry. This is particularly
obser vable in the proliferation
of games, especially online and
mobile games, which offer loot
boxes. Loot boxes in video games
are a kind of lucky-dip container
offering a random bundle of ingame entities (items or characters)
in exchange for real-world currency. Electronic games increasingly
use a variety of psychological and
psycho -economic m e c h a n i s m s
to encourage players to buy lootboxes: progression and advancement in the game might be made
easier by items or characters only
available through loot boxes; the
"near miss" effect and the scarcity
of valuable objects; the "disappointment" effect when confronted by yet
another commonplace and worthless object; the macho competition
engendered by player-versus-player
gaming modes requiring upgrades
in order to be competitive; the
potential lack of feedback in online
payments; and the unwitting role of
"whales," players with disposable
income willing to spend substantial amounts of money chasing rare
objects and so dragging prices up
for everybody else (much as tourists who pay exorbitant rates for
tuk-tuk rides drag the prices up for
the local population). Unsurprisingly, this merging of gambling and
gaming has had anti-social repercussions [13], and regulation has
once again lagged behind technology (which has been called the "law
lag"; see also [14]).
However, it is not just the gambling and gaming industries that
have cynically taken advantage of the
disconnection between physical and
digital environments, and the fact
that neural pathways that evolved for
MARCH 2020

the former can be exploited for commercial gain in the latter [15]. The
purveyors of social media platforms
have also worked out how to activate
the same "addictive" mechanisms,
notably related to neurotransmission, that are used to hook gamblers
and gamers. The interface and affordance mechanisms include: "pull to
refresh" as a kind of social media
bandit arm on a slot machine (with
the same feelings of anticipation and
reward, with the reward not always
satisfied); the liberal use of the color
red for alerts demanding attention;
the role of "likes" and "kudos" in the
pursuit of social acceptance and affirmation; the exploitation of the need
for meaning and narrative (mythos)
in the corrupted form of "stories";
the suggestion of "fomo" (fear of
missing out) requiring regular attention be paid to social media feeds;
and the maintenance of streaks [16],
based on nothing more than milking
futile and febrile attempts to avoid
the inevitability of self-disappointment, less likely than keeping new
year resolutions.
There is some medical uncert a int y over whether excessive,
obsessive, or compulsive use of
online platforms (whether for gaming, gambling, or social media) is
clinically addiction, by definition,
i.e., as characterized by an inability
to stop using a substance, failure to
meet obligations, etc., but it seems
clear that some form of dependence is being activated. Some of
the symptoms of dependence in a
person include:
■

∕

Tolerance: the person requires
increased use to achieve a certain effect, and may experience some associated tactile
responses that are not real -
some people check their phones
hundreds of times per day, and
phantom phone vibration is a
reported phenomenon [17];

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

Lack of attention: the person
becomes less able to take care
of their work, family, or social
c om m it ment s - it i s of ten
young children who say they
would like to lower their parents'
screen time than the other way
round [18];
■ Carelessness and insensitivity:
despite being told or warned,
the person puts potentially compromising material on social
media, risking careers and relationships - see, for example
Internet-shaming and Twitterstorms [19];
■ Deteriorating mental health: a
lowering self-esteem, caused
by an inaccurate comparison
with the supposedly perfect
life of social media influencers;
compounded by the increasing
awareness of little self-efficacy
with regards to ending the dependence; the person has is already
too heavily invested to back out,
and anyway there is an absence
of a viable alternative; and
■ Toxicity: unlike addiction to
chemical substances where the
downward spiral of dependence
and addiction ends in physical
death, digital dependence can
lead to a strange sort of digital
death: a twilight of the persona
involving a loss of cognitive skills,
loss of autonomy, loss of self-control, loss of individuality...
■

In conclusion, our perception is
that, even until very recently, sales
and marketing techniques in the
digital sphere tried to build on social
relationships like trust and loyalty,
even as they tried to tie customers
to organizations with a lifelong relationship; even as "loyalty" meant no
such recognizable thing (switching
customers often got better deals
and preferential treatment to longterm customers; "loyalty" cards
offered exiguous rewards to the

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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020

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