I read this one for our family book club, and it definitely made me think. I don't know that it was exactly earth-shattering, but it definitely got me thinking about how I use technology. I honestly think I spend too much time on my phone, and I think I pick it up too often. Even if I put it down pretty quickly, I still check my phone all. the. time. I think I need to get a watch so that I don't have the excuse to be touching my phone so much. I loved how at the beginning it talked about how so many tech leaders refuse to let their children use most of the technologies they are selling, and how they personally recognize the capabilities to overuse and be too reliant on technology. He pretty much is writing about how there is no such thing as an addictive personality, but there are circumstances in which anyone can become addicted to things, and people working in these technologies have worked to adapt their technologies to take advantage of these addictive tendencies to make us more addicted. Wow, that is the most convoluted sentence I could possibly write, but I am too lazy to go back and rewrite that right now. The things they use to make us addicted to them are feedback, progress, escalation, cliffhangers, and social interaction, and he writes about each of those things in turn and gives interesting examples of how they work in our social media and video games and Netflix shows these days. I think there's something to his ideas, and I think there's a lot we could all do to be better. I try really hard to not waste time on my phone with my kids around, but I want to be better about just not checking it at all.
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