Dr. Carl Erik Fisher

Friction is one thing that we can do.

Paying really close attention to the intention is very useful.

You know, this is a core, core principle in people who struggle with their use.

We ask, what is this doing for me right now?

How does this behavior make sense?

So when you're reaching for your phone and you have that tickle in the back of your head that says, this is not necessarily serving me, or I'm not really sure that this is going in a good place, you know, an hour from now, I'll be feeling bad about it.

Rather than

going to like a shame strategy that says no no no don't do this don't do this you could ask like you know what am i really looking for here and sometimes the phone might be the right solution right but if it's not if it's that oh i'm exhausted i just want to lie down and take a nap or i feel lonely maybe i need to call and reach out to a friend these are two drastically different strategies but i think with that kind of psychological granularity it can start to point toward the solution that is really helpful is really nourishing

That is the real question, right?

Is what would that even look like?

Yeah.

Because, for example, some people have proposed there could be some sort of algorithm level regulation.

Some jurisdictions have banned social media use for children under a certain age and so forth and so on.

But I do think, again, that we tend to get stuck, especially when we're talking about topics related to diminished control and addiction, in this binary where we think it's all or nothing.

This is especially true in the States where we've allowed a lot of industries that sell potentially harmful products to run roughshod, where we think any regulation exists.

is like tipping over into the binary, and we can't have that.

We have to have more of a libertarian approach to these things.

In gambling, for example, there's some good examples where other jurisdictions, primarily in Europe, have selectively enforced restrictions

on certain types of gambling.

They haven't outlawed app-based or phone-based gambling entirely, but they do say in-game betting is particularly troublesome for problematic gamblers.