Last week I gave a guest lecture at Boston College on the topic of internet addictions and other concepts best described as technology use disorders. It’s not every day I get to talk shop with graduate students, and I was thankful to my friend John Ciervo for letting my loose on his Addictions in Mental Health Counseling class.

Though it looks good on paper, the concept of internet addiction or gaming addiction as a diagnosis does not do justice to the impact of personal technology on psychopathology. For such a discussion to be useful, addiction serves as a point of embarkation rather than a major focus. 

Most discussion about the attention economy focuses on how individuals engage with platforms and companies. There is less discussion of how physiological mechanisms and network effects combine to give the attention economy its teeth. The end result is a vicious feedback loop in which the macrocosm of society and the microcosm of individual experience influence one another to the detriment of both. 

It was especially interesting to hear students reflect on how technology informs and interrupts clinical work. When technology becomes a third point in a relationship triangle, or a mediating factor in an interaction, or someone has a conflict with a so-called inanimate object, how we can mindfully utilize such moments for the purpose of assessment and intervention?