Why Everyone is Constantly on Their Smartphone

Arthur Nissen

Integrative Senior Thesis

Mr. Wade

Mrs. Banker

6 April 2018

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Abstract

Smartphones are an emerging technology that has become a large part of the daily life of many people skyrocketing in popularity in the last decade especially. The hook of the smartphone is its ability to perform a variety of functions well in a simplistic way, primarily through apps and their features, which can lead to addiction. People become addicted to their smartphones because the wide variety of features on a smartphone are tailored to get people as reliant and addicted as possible. Smartphones have the ability to significantly improve and change daily life but the control that they can have on people should not be overlooked.

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In 2007, the original iPhone debuted at a price of $499 and ten years later, the iPhone X

hit the market at a price of $999. Factoring in inflation, this is a price jump of 83%. Smartphone

producing companies have been able to increase their prices at this rate because demand has

become more and more inelastic due to the increased addiction. In 2011, 35% of American

adults had smartphones which has increased to 77% today. Before 2011, smartphones were such

a new technology that the question of who owned one was not included in Pew Research

Center’s annual statistical analysis of cellphone owners. The increase from 35% to 77% is a

doubling of the percentage of people who had smartphones in 2011 which corresponds nicely to

the 83% increase in prices. Only part of the 83% price increase can be explained by the increase

in smartphone ownership, the rest can be attributed to the smartphone demand becoming more

inelastic which is due to increased addiction. In 2015, young adults spent approximately five

hours a day on a smartphone, which is double what the users themselves predicted, showing that

about half of the usage is habitual and not a direct conscious decision to use the device

(Gregorie). The cost of producing the technology itself is also not a determining factor because

the total component cost of the standard iPhone X is between $350 and $400. According to a

survey from Pew Research Center, 46% of smartphone users say they “couldn’t live without”

their smartphone. In addition to this, approximately 10% of Americans use their smartphone as

their only way of connecting to the internet, as opposed to having a personal computer or home

Wi-Fi network. The smartphone market has undoubtedly grown in the last decade and with it, a

need to answer the question: “why do people become addicted to their smartphone?”

People become addicted to their smartphones because the wide variety of features on a

smartphone are tailored to get people as reliant and addicted as possible. This use will be proven

by looking at how people become addicted in a general case. Addiction, as defined by English

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Oxford Dictionary, is “Physically and mentally dependent on a particular substance.” (English

Oxford Living Dictionaries) A review of smartphones most addictive features and why

they are so addictive will be presented. This review is important to understand before

delving into how smartphone companies and the producers of smartphone apps design

their products so that a connection can be made between designers’ choices and how

those choices impact addiction. Next, an analysis of different addictive smartphone apps

and how their features are made purposefully addictive by their developers will be

discussed. The apps in question will be determined by significantly popular apps

throughout their relatively short history and are as follows: the game Fruit Ninja, the

streaming service Prime Video, and the fitness tracker Sweatcoin. A key category

missing from the above list is a social media app which consumes about one hour and

40 minutes each day or about 30% of time spent on a smartphone (Davidson). This area

has been purposefully excluded in order to focus on less obvious features because of the

significant breadth of the social media category and the fact that social media apps have

been covered extensively by other sources. The examination of apps is a critical part of

the paper because apps are one of the most defining features of a smartphone that make

them different from regular cellphones. To understand the relationship between

smartphones and addiction, it is beneficial to examine each separately before delving

into the connection.

From the first cellphone call in 1973 to the latest smartphone release, the awe-

inspiring technology has made leaps and bounds to become an integral part of everyday

life for a majority of young adults in America (Seward). Smartphones did not emerge

until approximately 20 years after the aforementioned first call depending on where the

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marker is set (Tweedie). Since then, smartphones have developed greatly and adapted to

fit perfectly into a user’s daily routine so they soon became integral, which was a short

step away from addiction. Addiction is primarily a concern for young adults, the part of

the population between the ages of 18 and 29 because that age group has the highest

amount of smartphone users at 94% compared to an average of 77% (Pew Research

Center). For the entire population of the US, including all age groups, the difference

between the percentage of people with cell phones but not smartphones is 17% while at

the young adult level, the people between ages 18 and 29, that same percentage falls to

six percent (Mobile Fact Sheet). This shows that smartphones have a greater grip on the

young adult population than the population as a whole. Not only does this age group

have the most smartphones but also the highest the rates of addiction to smartphones

which is a difficult thing to objectively measure, however, one common method is

asking survey participants a version of the question “could you live without your

smartphone.” Since smartphones are a recent development, the young adult population

has been the steadiest adopters of the developing technology and are therefore the most

affected. The case of smartphone addiction is a recent one but ever growing as

smartphones continue to expand their reach and influence over the population.

Addiction starts when the brain cannot be without something, usually drugs or

alcohol, but the same principles are at work for smartphone addiction. Addiction works

like many other diseases by disrupting normal, and often healthy bodily functions that

can have long-lasting consequences (National Institute on Drug Abuse). Drugs are the

most common substance that people become addicted to for a variety of reasons. The

most common reasons as stated by the National Institute on Drug Abuse are: “To feel

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good…To feel better…To do better…Curiosity and ‘because others are doing it.’” All

of these reasons translate well into smartphone addiction due to the fact that

smartphones can still give the same benefits of drugs though on a lesser scale.

Smartphones can provide feelings of pleasure in much the same way that drugs can. For

example, drugs such as heroin induce feelings of relaxation and satisfaction (National

Institute on Drug Abuse). The same can be said about smartphones when used as a

distractions or alternative during otherwise bothersome activities. This also helps to

reduce stress and anxiety in situations where those feelings commonly originate. Drug

addiction can start because of social pressure on teens and other young adults imposed

by their peers (National Institute on Drug Abuse). The addiction can start when

someone wants a smartphone because everyone around them has one and then

progresses to the point where everyone has a smartphone and instead are asked whether

they have the latest trending app or something similar. The social pressures to be like

others associated with smartphones, and drugs, are the primary reasons that it gains a

foothold and also why it progresses. These benefits that smartphones create then

become so commonplace for people that it leads to addiction.

Addiction to smartphones is ever increasing as a result of new and improved

features developing to increase the number of users addicted. To see the constant

changes, examine the current smartphone models that are leaps and bounds ahead of

their equivalents as recently as a decade ago. New smartphone models are unveiled on

at least an annual basis depending on the company, for example, Apple Inc. has released

a new model of the iPhone every year since the original debuted in 2007 (Haselton).

While the hardware for a smartphone changes on an annual basis, the software

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progresses even faster. While the software releases are not perfectly planned out

chronologically, a general trend can be seen by looking at Apple Inc. Their iPhone

software, known as iOS followed by a number depicting the version, is updated on a

semi-monthly basis with entirely new versions being released sometime during the

summer or early fall (Costello). Apple Inc. is a standard example and many of their

competitors, other smartphone producers, follow a similar schedule in order to remain

competitive. Moving onto features of increasing frequency of updates and new releases,

apps can be updated on a daily basis if the developer chooses to or can be updated on a

regular schedule such as the app Microsoft Word which receive updates every two

weeks (App Store). The constant updates that come with improvements of all forms can

have multiple different effects on the users. First, they keep current users on board by

not letting them get bored with the old features. Second, it can entice curiosity in both

current and potential users to try new features. Third, it can correct problems or

limitations that might have prevented a person from buying or using the product in the

first place. A commonplace example can make this concept easier to conceptualize:

what if a person was unwilling to buy a certain smartphone because the camera was not

good enough but with the new version, the camera got better and then gave the person a

reason to buy that specific smartphone. According to an interview of Glenelg Country

School teacher Meir Pluznik, commonly known as Memi, he says that when getting a

new phone, the camera is “Very important” to him because it improves sharpness and

overall quality (Pluznik). Staying on the topic of the camera, in 2011, around two

billion photos were taken by a phone but in 2017, with new and better cameras, just

over one trillion photos were taken (Molla). This is partly because more people now

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have a phone with a camera but if that was the only reason, the amount of photos should

be no more than five billion because the growth in smartphone ownership has only

increased by slightly more than double. New features on smartphones serve the purpose

to get more people to buy the product and keep existing users coming back.

Of a smartphone’s plentiful features, apps are the main distinguisher from

regular cellphones and give them the extra allure that contributes to their addictive

quality. While apps still exist on regular cellphones, they are very limited in their

functionality relative to a standard smartphone. The apps on a smartphone give users

something that they cannot get easily any other way, countless hours of entertainment

that can be carried around in a pocket. This distinguishes smartphones and their apps

from other devices like laptops, tablets, and even books which can still provide hours of

entertainment but are not easily accessible during everyday tasks e.g. waiting in line at

the supermarket. There are many different types of apps available on a smartphone,

each with their own defining characteristics that influence addiction in different ways

by allowing different types of people to become addicted to different features. Looking

no further than any virtual app store, a user can see millions of potential time-

consuming apps just waiting to be downloaded. Specifically, as of June of 2017, there

were three million apps available for download on the Google Play Store alone

(Dogtiev). Many of these apps have equivalents on other operating systems, especially

the more popular ones, but each platform has exclusive apps that only run on one

operating system. This can be seen as an incentive for users to choose a specific brand

of smartphone but that fact does not add to the addictive quality of smartphones in

general. However, the sheer number of apps, on any operating system, is not to be

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underestimated especially when factoring in the growth of the quantity of apps over

time. Currently, Google Play Store is growing at approximately 1,300 apps a day

(Dogtiev). This not only shows how much content there is for people to get addicted to

but also that the development of new content is not slowing down but instead increasing

which contributes to more people getting addicted. As proof of this upward trend on a

more drastic level, the number of mobile app downloads worldwide in 2017 was 197

billion but is expected to hit 350 billion by 2021. Apps are by far the highest time

consumer for both the population as a whole but even more so for the people within the

age group of 18 to 24. Of total time spent on a media device e.g. desktop computer,

smartphone, tablet, the adult population of the United States spends on average 57% of

their time on a smartphone but for ages 18 to 24 that percentage surges to 73%. Of the

73% of time spent on a smartphone, just over 90% is spent on an app as opposed to on

the web. (Dogtiev) This is proof of how important apps are to the overall smartphone

experience since a vast majority of time spent on a smartphone is devoted to using apps.

Apps are the cornerstone of the smartphone and are the key feature that gets people

addicted, however, this is done in different ways depending on app.

One way apps get users addicted is with the incentive to open the app on a daily

basis to get extra rewards. The reward system is an efficient way for app developers to

increase the chance that the user will spend more time on that specific app also showing

the extra lengths people will go for a small reward in the larger scheme of things. This

can become a habitual act which is partly why most users underestimate the time spent

on a smartphone by half (Davidson). Two of the three example apps selected have this

feature. The game Fruit Ninja incentivizes players to open the game every day for an

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ever increasing reward. If even one day is missed the reward cycle resets completely

and the player is forced to start over at the base reward. These rewards can vary greatly

such as extra in-game currency which can be a slow process to obtain or rarer and more

coveted prizes such as bonus features that improve gameplay performance and are

normally only available after spending real-world currency. (Fruit Ninja) This is a more

and more common feature on gaming apps because it is such an effective way to make

users think about the app on a daily basis (App Store). However, gaming apps are not

the only type of app to use this strategy to get users hooked. A similar feature is

available on the popular fitness app Sweatcoin where users can earn one Sweatcoin a

day for watching a video advertisement. On the page of offers the following message is

shown before the reward has been reclaimed: “Daily Reward You earned a Daily

Reward. Get ($)1 daily for clicking here! Claim it now!” “($)” signifies the symbol for

Sweatcoin since the actual symbol cannot be typed. After the user clicks “Claim it

now!” the message quickly changes to “Daily Reward Congrats on today’s daily reward.

Come back tomorrow for another!” showing users the benefit of opening the app the

next day before one day is even over. The value of a Sweatcoin is low but over time the

rewards add up allowing the user to obtain high-value goods. On the store page of the

app, users can buy products worth $1000 such as an iPhone X, $1000 PayPal Cash, or a

Curved Samsung TV for 20,000 Sweatcoins. (Sweatcoin) Doing a quick calculation of

dividing $1,000 by 20,000 Sweatcoins gives the conversion factor that one Sweatcoin is

worth exactly five USD cents. This is real money that users can earn by doing the

simple action of opening an app and clicking a button to watch one 30 second video.

This easy way to earn money is an attractive incentive to keep users coming back each

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day until it becomes a habit and the user is addicted. Opening an app on a daily basis by

itself is not addicting but it is habit forming which can inadvertently lead to a user

being addicted to getting the small satisfaction of gaining a reward on a daily basis.

Daily rewards work on any type of app as an effective strategy to get users in the habit

of using the app.

Another reason for users to come back to an app is the social incentive many

apps put forth to keep their users either competitive or connected. Sweatcoin

successfully embraces both of those aspects by offering multiple ways to interact with

other people through the app. The first way caters to the competitive side of people by

allowing them to see how many steps and how many Sweatcoins each of their friends

have. (Sweatcoin) The thrill of winning affects a person on both a biological and

psychological level. When a person wins in any sort of competition, in this case,

whoever has the most steps, the body produces the chemicals testosterone and dopamine

which can increase certain positive emotions like happiness and excitement. (Grippo)

Since there are rewards on a biological level, users are incentivized to keep using

Sweatcoin in order to beat their friends and gain this reward. Since a majority of people

would not be aware of these biological effects, it can be logically inferred that many do

not know why they like winning just that they do. Being unaware of what is happening

can lead to faster addiction to the Sweatcoin app or any app that allows for competition

among fellow users. This is true for many gaming apps as well, Fruit Ninja is an

excellent example because the game allows a player to connect with their friends and

see who holds the highest score (Fruit Ninja). On a friendlier note, Sweatcoin also

works to bring people together and have them work towards a common goal. It does this

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by allowing multiple people to pool their Sweatcoins in order to purchase larger prizes

(Sweatcoin). This is an incentive for people to continue using the app not only to get

the explicit benefit of whatever they are trying to purchase together but also the implicit

benefit of not being the lowest contributing member of the group. Social aspects of an

app are not just reserved for social media, they also contribute to the addictive qualities

of other types of apps, fitness and gaming apps among them, by bringing people back to

the app whether it is through a driving sense of competition or community.

Notifications are an effective way to bring back users to an app allowing the

other addictive properties of the app to take hold when the app is opened. One of the

key aspects of creating an addictive app is figuring out a way for users to open the app

in the first place. Statistically, this can be a very difficult task. Within the age group of

18 to 24 year olds, each person has on average 93.5 apps on their smartphone but do not

use all of them on a daily basis. On average, in the US, each smartphone user opens

between 10 and 11 apps on a daily basis. (Dogtiev) This means that only around 10% of

apps on a smartphone are used daily drawing focus on the fact that app developers need

to focus on getting users to open an app if they want the users to become addicted and

use it on a daily basis. One way app developers can accomplish this is with

notifications. These notifications appear on the home screen of a smartphone so they are

impossible to miss. The only drawback is that they can be disabled. Notifications can

display a variety of messages, each designed to maximize the probability of bringing

the user back to the app. The streaming app, Prime Video, does this effectively. The app

sends the user notifications to alert them of new content available to watch. The titles

selected for the notification are determined by what is currently most popular but also

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what the user has previously watched and liked. (Amazon Video for iPhone) This

increases the chance that the user will see something they like and therefore come back

to the app. Streaming apps like Prime Video are not the only apps that use this strategy,

many other apps are furnished with notifications but the content always varies to appeal

to the main audience of the app. This can be seen in the app Sweatcoin where

notifications contain information about new offers and in the game Fruit Ninja where

notifications remind the user of their daily reward. Notifications are a successful way to

get users back to the app while making it seem like the app is doing them a favor

instead of trying to keep them addicted.

Smartphone addiction happens because of a smartphone’s assortment of features that are

each designed to make as many people as reliant and addicted as possible. Smartphones are a

new technology but an ever growing one with the young adult population leading the way in

utilizing them the most. As more and more people adopt smartphones, they become increasingly

reliant upon the smartphones until addiction begins for one reason or another. The main reason is

the apps that accompany any smartphone, the feature that makes smartphones the most useful but

also the most addictive because they cover such a wide field allowing for almost anyone to find

what they enjoy the most. Once an app has been downloaded, a user is incentivized to keep using

it in order gain the rewards of using the app on a daily basis, therefore making the use of the app

change from habitual to addictive. Whether it is for competitive or communal reasons, the social

aspect of many apps is a driving factor leading to addiction. Lastly, the capability of apps to

notify users of new content gives apps the ability to interact with users before the app is open and

works to make the user open the app. Smartphone addiction is just the tip of the iceberg in terms

of the impact that new and sophisticated technology can have on society. Smartphones are a very

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recent invention yet they can be seen in almost every aspect of life. Technology can improve

society drastically like smartphones have done, but there will always be drawbacks and

consequences to rapid technological adoption.

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