Is our Economic Model of Addiction disempowering or empowering?
Is our Addiction Economy concept and our strapline ‘It’s not you it’s them’ empowering or disempowering? Does it give us agency or take it away?
US-based blogger Michael Woudenberg makes the case in his article Agency vs Addiction that we are not puppets of the industry and that we still have agency and that our framing is wrong. “When it comes to the addiction economy, no one is forcing any of us to do anything. It takes a personal choice to say “Yes.”
We have really struggled with this too and are grateful for the push to articulate ourselves better. Here’s our response:
About the Economic Model
Our Economic Model of Addiction shows the 4 strategies companies use to addict us - with the definition of addiction taken from the NHS website as “not having control over doing, taking or using something to the point where it could be harmful to you”. These are:
Addictive product design
Predatory marketing
Misinformation
Undermining political action
We argue that knowing about this model is both disempowering and empowering, but that ultimately it leads to the most empowering and effective solutions of all.
The Disempowering Part - these strategies really work
Yes, ‘no-one is forcing us’ to use these products, but the orchestration of our entire environment to make these products seem like something we want, even need, fundamentally takes away our agency, freedom of action and even arguably some argue, they are taking away our freedom of thought.
Addictive Product Design
It is no coincidence that our high streets are packed with coffee shops, unhealthy food takeaways, vape shops, gambling shops and places selling alcohol. Or that some of the biggest companies in the world are tech companies creating software products we can’t seem to stop using. These products have inbuilt addictive qualities which mean we want them more than the things that haven’t.
Predatory Marketing
Marketing works. Some of the brightest creative minds in the world have designed ways to make us feel that these products add something to our lives and to ‘nudge’ us, using knowledge of the social, biological and psychological factors which cause addiction (more in our White Paper below). Addicting your customers is big money and these companies can afford to spend more than most to embed them in our culture, in our way of life. (Gambling in the UK is a great example where something which was not allowed to be advertised suddenly was, with dramatic results and devastating effects on mental and physical health of many citizens.)
Misinformation
Disappointingly, misinformation also works. Organisations co-opt what we do trust, like science and academia, influencers, and media, using knowledge of psychology and behavioural science to mess with our heads, blur the lines of what we think, influence our view of their products, our need for them and our perceptions of their value to society.
Undermining political action
‘Regulatory Capture’, or the influence over politicians and regulators to prioritise financial value over the public interest is also highly effective. Lobbying to avoid restrictions on product design, advertising, availability and misinformation is a fundamental part of the model.
Of course these strategies don’t work for all of us, all the time. But this business model works just well enough to make the companies very rich and harm the mental and physical health of millions of people, with the financial costs of dealing with the problems they cause running into the billions.
The Empowering Part - knowledge gives us agency
Our view is that it although it can be upsetting, even a bit embarrassing, to realise how easily we can be manipulated, it can also be empowering to see more clearly just how and why it happens.
It is also empowering see that perhaps we are not as pathetic, weak, or lacking in will power as we are often made to feel because of our addictions. Millions, in fact billions of ‘normal’ people are addicted to these products for very good reasons of economics and power. @Joe Woof’s research for his film The Vaping Dilemma showed that knowing that it is lots of people’s job to make us use these products too much can give people a different and more empowered perspective on their usage.
But Michael is also right, this knowledge is also really depressing and disempowering. ‘How can I possibly resist this when all these powerful companies are making it there business to have me be this way’. We think that regularly.
Michaels solution is one of individual empowerment and personal choice. “It doesn’t matter what’s being sold, who’s trying to sell it, what sort of societal pressures exist, nor how addicting something can be. We can, and we have ample evidence that it works, say “No, not me.” Each step into addiction was a choice and each step back out is also a choice.”
Perhaps surprisingly this ‘addiction is a choice’ approach is the one that the companies like the best, and spend lots of time and money supporting - as Grant Ennis shows in his book Dark PR, Rebecca Cassidy in Vicious Games Capitalism and Gambling and Chris Van Tulleken in Ultra Processed People, as do the WHO and Lancet and others in their studies on the Commercial Determinants of Health.
Why? Because it puts all the onus back on us, and deflects attention from the best long term solution which is to change the environment which allows addictive products to flourish and undermine our ability to control our actions in the first place.
There have been many many ‘just say no’ style campaigns, for example for cigarettes and alcohol over the years which have not shifted the needle on addiction at all. If the addiction is a choice strategy was effective, we would see its results, given that has been the un-addiction strategy in many countries for so long.
What has worked is regulation. Which Michael is dismissive of, citing prohibition, the puritans and the war on drugs as reasons not to restrict the components the Economic Model.
The Economic Model and Un-addiction - the most empowering of all - change the environment
We are astonished at how much of the academic research into addiction seems to focus on explaining the deficiencies of the addicted individual and how little on addressing the external drivers of their addiction, in particular the economic factors. (See outline in our White Paper)
But there is a growing weight of evidence which shows that the best way to address addiction is to change the environment which allows it to flourish. Our model defines the Economic drivers of addiction which are driven in turn by the relentless focus on short term financial returns of neo-liberal capitalism (see below). It is this environment which must change to address addiction.
The next phase of our project will go into ‘what works’ in more detail, but figure 2 outlines some ideas which have worked in various sectors where restrictions have been in place or where they have been lifted, with the corresponding changes in usage and harm.
But what about outright bans? This is Michael’s big beef, that regulation means bans and bans are bad. We have lots more work to do on this ourselves, but there is a difference between bans which criminalise the user and bans which aim to prevent the product from becoming a mainstream product for recreational use. The former are a bad idea, particularly in the sort of mainstream products that we are talking about, the latter are sometimes effective, as we have seen from restrictions on gambling and cigarettes.
It is not as straight forward as ‘prohibition didn’t work, so we mustn’t ban things’. Each addictive product is different. Banning phones because of their addictive properties will not work, they, like alcohol in the UK and Europe are too deeply embedded in society. But banning certain types of software tools which cause addiction may help. Gradually phasing out the ability to purchase cigarettes, (and vapes at the same time in our opinion), may work if other factors (as above) have been in place for decades before hand. Clearly lots to think about!
And finally just to respond to the question which often arises ‘but we’re addicted to sex and shopping and exercise’ or, as Michael accuses us of being, addicted to ‘moral posturing’. If we can be addicted to anything, the thinking goes, there is no difference in us being addicted to cigarettes, human beings are clearly just addictive beings and should be free to choose. (As an aside, online pornography we are considering adding to our list of Addiction Economy industries).
These addictions illustrate the Social, Biological and Psychological factors which contribute to addiction. For example, perhaps when we feel overwhelmed or need to feel in control, or to fit in or stand out, many of us are drawn to suppress those feelings by ‘doing, taking or using something’, to help ourselves deal with the discomfort. Addiction happens not with the self-soothing itself, but with doing it to excess until it harms us.
Through the lens of the Economic Model, this aspect of human nature which makes us vulnerable companies know only too well. As we show in our White Paper they exploit it to the full for their own financial advantage and in the process causing untold mental and physical harm to millions.
Here is our White Paper:
The Economic Model of Addiction - the missing link in Addiction Modelling and why it matters