Anecdotally, I recently discussed phone addiction with a youngish tenured professor friend in the psych department at a major university. Two things stood out for me:
1. My academic friend really had a limited understanding of the success of machine learning in driving engagement online. How algorithms can and will enhance whatever mechanism they discover to drive engagement numbers. And how our brains are not wired to compete against them.
2. He took exception to the word addiction in the context of phones. He felt a phone could not drive addiction in the same way as a substance.
My opinion is that our academic research is significantly behind due to the sheer speed and exponential growth of phone/app usage.
Maybe your friend is just ignorant if they are purely psych and not well versed in cognitive-neuroscience, which may be the best field for investigating and understanding modern day tech addictions via fMRI brain scans, etc.
I wouldn't expect the field of Psychology to lead research in the area, as you also concluded in your closing statement.
Anecdotally, I recently discussed phone addiction with a youngish tenured professor friend in the psych department at a major university. Two things stood out for me:
1. My academic friend really had a limited understanding of the success of machine learning in driving engagement online. How algorithms can and will enhance whatever mechanism they discover to drive engagement numbers. And how our brains are not wired to compete against them.
2. He took exception to the word addiction in the context of phones. He felt a phone could not drive addiction in the same way as a substance.
My opinion is that our academic research is significantly behind due to the sheer speed and exponential growth of phone/app usage.