Irresistible

The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked

By: Adam Alter

Narrated by: Adam Alter

Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

Welcome to the age of behavioral addiction - an age in which half of the American population is addicted to at least one behavior. We obsess over our emails, Instagram likes, and Facebook feeds; we binge on TV episodes and YouTube videos; we work longer hours each year; and we spend an average of three hours each day using our smartphones. Half of us would rather suffer a broken bone than a broken phone, and Millennial kids spend so much time in front of screens that they struggle to interact with real, live humans.

In this revolutionary audiobook, Adam Alter, a professor of psychology and marketing at NYU, tracks the rise of behavioral addiction, and explains why so many of today's products are irresistible. Though these miraculous products melt the miles that separate people across the globe, their extraordinary and sometimes damaging magnetism is no accident. The companies that design these products tweak them over time until they become almost impossible to resist.

By reverse engineering behavioral addiction, Alter explains how we can harness addictive products for the good - to improve how we communicate with each other, spend and save our money, and set boundaries between work and play - and how we can mitigate their most damaging effects on our well-being, and the health and happiness of our children.

©2017 Adam Alter (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Irresistible is a fascinating and much needed exploration of one of the most troubling phenomena of modern times.” (Malcolm Gladwell, author of New York Times best-sellers David and Goliath and Outliers)

“One of the most mesmerizing and important books I’ve read in quite some time. Alter brilliantly illuminates the new obsessions that are controlling our lives and offers the tools we need to rescue our businesses, our families, and our sanity.” (Adam Grant, New York Times best-selling author of Originals and Give and Take)

“If you can't stop checking, clicking, surfing and liking, put your device down and read Adam Alter's Irresistible, an important, groundbreaking book about why we're addicted to technology, how we got here, and what we should do next.” (Arianna Huffington, author of The Sleep Revolution and Thrive)

I'm addicted!

I enjoyed listening to the book better than reading it. The way the narrator read the book kept me engaged and wanting to hear more. The book is very interesting and well written. Love it.

Good book on behavioral addiction!

This went really well into behavioral addiction, which I had never heard of before. There was a lot of research and discussion on studies performed on addiction. I was expecting more in depth discussion on just technology, but I do understand the reason to integrate other addiction studies as well in order to show how addictive tech is. Great advice on how to step away too.

Must Listen

Harrowing and thought provoking. Must read for anyone. Adam hammers the pervasiveness of behavioral addictions in an easy to digest way.

File it under Techno-horror.

Alter has provided us with a scary, well-documented, wide-ranging study of the power and danger of Addictive Technology, its present and its future.

So much of what we love about it has a perilous, manipulative dark side. He warns us but also points the way to ameliorating its effects. Well done. Four Stars.

Must Read

The book becomes a must read based on the access we have to technology and the ease to disengage from the eye to eye contact & interaction with people on moment to moment basis. This is not my type of topic to become engaged in yet the way content was presented kept my mind stimulated and hungry for more,

Timely exploration of who technology is affecting

Adam does a nice job developing the different ways in which technology is created to be invasive in our lives. This book is excellent but the last couple of chapters seemed to be a bit tired and wander from the power of the first. There aren't easy answers and it seems like there was a bit of giving up at the end. I think this book combined with "The Tech Wise Family" by Andy Crouch would be a good launching point for both the problem and a solution.

This is truly a life changing book.

Just by becoming aware of the level of hypocrisy and manipulation used by Tech companies I have decreased my phone and computer usage every day since I read this book.

This is a must-listen

Such an eye opener. I am sure that I will visit this book multiple times.

A Must-Read

This is a must-read for those who care to be informed. Choosing not to be informed puts us at the mercy of those who are.

Insanely Eye-Opening.

I can’t believe the life I’ve been living before this newfound awareness. Please read this book. Technological addiction is the most severe and widespread yet. And I hate that I was a part of that trend.