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How Addictive Technology Keeps You Hooked with Professor Adam Alter

Nov 2020 🇬🇧 Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee

In this 'Feel Better, Live More' podcast conversation with UK physician Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, Adam Alter discusses how technology companies build features into apps and platforms that he associates with difficulty disengaging, including unpredictable social rewards, goal-based progress systems, and the absence of natural stopping points. The conversation covers concerns Alter raises about the effects of heavy device-mediated interaction on children specifically, and he recommends teaching 'digital hygiene' in schools alongside practical household measures such as designated screen-free hours and keeping phones out of sight during family time. He balances this critique with acknowledgment of technology's genuine benefits for education and communication. TechKids Foundation includes this conversation as an international, UK-hosted treatment of Alter's design critique aimed at a general parenting audience.

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"How Addictive Technology Keeps You Hooked with Professor Adam Alter." Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee, episode 132, November 18, 2020. https://drchatterjee.com/how-addictive-technology-keeps-you-hooked-with-professor-adam-alter/

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