There is no doubt, however, that it does cause distress and financial hardship for a significant number of people and their families. Dr James Driver discusses this significant social problem. This is part one of a two-part article.
This is part one of this series. Read Part 2 >>
Practice points
• Coercive design is a broad term, but refers to software and games that are designed in such a way so as to almost control the behaviour, or trick the person into behaving in ways that they might not consciously choose to do so.
• The companies need to get people using the software and staying engaged with it as much as possible, so that people are seeing more advertisements.
• The coercive design in a lot of these products is designed to keep people using the software for longer, and the more we do that, the harder it can become to step away from it.
• Gaming companies and other social media play off innate psychological needs to keep us engaged.
• People develop addictions because they are using the addiction, or the addictive process, to fulfill a function or to meet a psychological need that they are not easily able to fulfill.
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