Research

App addiction: It's not as irrational as it seems

If you think Facebook, Candy Crush and other social apps are addictive, you’re right. The average smartphone user spends two hours and 38 minutes on his or her device. But, that addictive behavior is rational, says Professor Sang Pil Han. That means, it can be affected through rational, economic approaches.

2015-03-02

For every parent who has ever watched a teenager burn through hours on Facebook or social gaming and wondered if there might be an addiction involved, the answer is “yes.” People of all ages — not just teens — are exhibiting addictive behavior with the apps they access on smartphones and tablets. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean app addicts are hapless victims needing psychological or medical care.

According to Sang Pil Han, a professor of Information Systems at the W. P. Carey School of Business, most of those who seem app addicted also exhibit “rational” addiction behaviors reflecting an intelligent and forward-thinking view of their hours with smartphone or tablet in hand. That means the behaviors could be impacted by simple changes in how social apps like Facebook and Candy Crush are engineered.

Time on our hands

How extensive is addiction to mobile apps? In covering the topic, Han likes to share a couple numbers: 80 and 12. That first number is how many times a day the average smartphone user activates his or her telephone, and the second is what that 80 phone activations equals in average frequency: once every 12 minutes. Another number Han shares is this: two hours and 38 minutes.

That’s how much time the average smartphone user spends each day on his or her device, checking social network updates, playing games and texting friends or family. Clearly, people around the world have latched onto smartphones and social media with two-fisted fury, and we’re showing no signs of putting the phone down more often in the future. That two and a half hours spent daily on Facebook and other social channels? “The number continues to grow,” says Han. “We’re getting more addicted every year.”

Reinforcement and tolerance are two underlying mechanisms that explain the ever-increasing attachment, Han says. Reinforcement is a psychology term that refers to the way behaviors increase when people associate pleasure with their addictive activities. “If I spent 10 minutes yesterday on my entire set of mobile apps, and if there is reinforcement, I am likely to spend more time on the apps today,” he explains.

However, the pleasure associated with the addictive behavior might not grow in proportion, and that’s the second crucial component of addiction: tolerance. “When I speak of tolerance, this relates to Economics 101 and the law of diminishing marginal utility,” Han continues. “The amount of utility I can gain from one extra minute’s usage of mobile apps becomes less and less as I use the apps more and more.”

In the cases of mobile app use, reinforcement can come from the social interactions people enjoy: the “likes” we chalk up on Facebook or the in-app currencies people exchange when playing social games. The fact that “likes” and wins become less and less rewarding reflects that law of diminishing marginal utility.

Rational expressions

As noted earlier, Han thinks that app addiction is something over which people have a degree of control. He envisions it as a “rational” addiction, and his research confirms this hypothesis. The rational addiction framework is a concept developed in the late 1980s, when researchers began to question the traditional view that addictive behavior reflects irrationality, compulsion, overindulgence and loss of control.

A component of this traditional view is myopia, the inability or refusal to anticipate future consequences of current behaviors and act prudently in response to that insight. What does forward-looking behavior look like in an addict? It’s the trait that makes people cut down on smoking or kick the habit altogether when they hear the price of cigarettes is about to rise. A scholarly study in 1994 found that a 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes can decrease consumption by as much as 7.5 percent in the long run.

It can even produce a decrease in consumption before the prices rise because the rational cigarette addict adjusts his or her behavior to get ready for the higher consumption cost. As Han explains it, “People calculate the costs and payoff of their behavior and adjust accordingly.” With mobile device use, part of the payoff is the social reward that comes from interactive apps.

According to social exchange theory, people evaluate the reward or utility of social interaction, and if it outweighs the cost, they’ll cultivate the relationship. If the cost is too high, they’ll walk away. The pleasure we get from social interactions largely constitutes the payoff we receive from those interactions. And, these two frameworks — rational addiction and social exchange theory — underpin the research Han conducted.

Likes and hearts

“Previous studies have looked at rational addiction framework through different kinds of products,” Han says. Among them are cigarettes, alcohol and gambling, all items that cost actual money, he adds. “Mobile apps are different because they’re truly digital products, and we don’t need to incur extra expense to use most of them.” Still, when Han tested whether apps fit in with the rational addiction framework, he found that they did.

Han partnered with Hyeokoo Eric Kwon, Hyunji So and Wonseok Oh, three researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, to conduct his investigation. The team culled data from Nielsen’s KoreanClick, a Korean market research company, to explore usage of Facebook and the social game Anipang to see how users reacted to events similar to the rise in cigarette prices.

Both apps offer users reinforcement and opportunities to develop tolerance. As noted earlier, reinforcement in Facebook comes from “likes” and other positive social feedback. In Anipang, users can see how they’re scoring compared to friends. They also have an in-app currency of hearts — with which one must buy each game. Hearts can be given and received among friends, and inviting friends into the game also brings in a reward of hearts. This give and take inherent in such social venues makes Han call the apps “social markets, because people display exchange behavior.”

Looking ahead

Just as policy and price changes proved to dampen addicts’ purchases of cigarettes, additional costs or benefits should impact usage of the social apps among those rationally addicted to them. That’s exactly what happened. During Han’s study, Facebook announced a new feature: Facebook Home. “We looked at the time gap between the announcement of the new feature and the date that Facebook actually released it.

If I’m forward-looking, I’ll probably increase my usage prior to the availability of that new feature,” Han explains. And, indeed, the Facebook users showed such forward-looking behavior. So did those gamers online playing Anipang, who dramatically reduced their gaming activity when the social game provider announced that a new version was coming out soon.

Han and his colleagues argue that the new version would diminish the network effect — or number of users — active in the old version, therefore reducing the payoff of the social game. Another term for that network effect could be social liquidity. Results from the data analysis found that users of Facebook were particularly sensitive to social liquidity. “If you have 1,000 friends, you log in more often to check your friends’ updates,” Han says.

The data also showed that those under the age of 30 showed a higher degree of addiction, while those over 30 showed more rationality in their consumption patterns. “Regardless of age, people show addictive behavior,” Han adds. In fact, the problem has become so pronounced that some countries are implementing policy to address it. South Korea, for instance, passed legislation dubbed the “Cinderella law,” an act that forbids game providers from delivering services to teens under that age of 16 between midnight and 6 a.m.

It was a flop, Han says, because teens simply logged in using their parents accounts. Other laws in Vietnam and People’s Republic of China also have been unsuccessful, which prompts Han to endorse a different approach to curbing app addiction. “To some extent, internal self-regulation would be an effective way people could maximize their own utility when using mobile apps, and it’s very cost effective for the policymaker,” he says.

To prompt self-regulation, Han recommends app developers make the number of friends and fellow gamers —or social liquidity in an app — more visible to those who are engaged with the app. “That information should be more visible so that users can adjust their own consumption to maximize their own utility.” So, when none of your friends or fellow gamers are online, you can pare down your own online activity, as you’re not as likely to enjoy the interaction social media offers.

Han thinks making the social liquidity of an app highly visible could have the same impact as price increases on cigarettes or alcohol. “Social liquidity would work as an important factor that could affect people’s behavior,” he maintains. After all, “Smartphone users are actually smart,” Han concludes. “They’re rational when they consume mobile apps.”

Bottom line

• Smartphone users activate their phones an average of once every 12 minutes, and users of social apps are spend an average of 2 hours and 38 minutes daily playing games, clicking “like” and more.
• Addiction to social apps is growing, says Sang Pil Han, and his research indicates that those who are addicted are exhibit forward-looking, rational addiction behavior.
• Rational addition means people weigh the costs and payback of their behavior and look ahead. Consequently, they can be impacted by economic means, such as price signals.
• Since those addicted to social apps are getting a charge out of the social interaction, Han believes app developers could help users adjust their usage and gain more utility by clearly showing a users’ friends and game buddies who are online at any time.

Managing IT Social, E-Commerce and Mobile Platforms