Oh, very much. Gamification and dopamine hits are prime example of using psychology to hook people to come back. For things such as Duolingo, great, much less for the Tiktok and FB reels that one ends up watching without even realizing you started. I still remember the time before, but I'm afraid for the younger generation. It's my main concern in raising my kid, not to let him become a mindless zombie with brain rot and a 2-second attention span.
We were lucky. Our kids are older than the smartphone and video games. Our concern was the television. To overcome the problems with the television, we used bribery! First, the school did an avoid television for a week and get a reward kind of contest. Then right away they went into a read books and get a reward contest. Our kids competed for the rewards and got them. So, that was the first two weeks. After that, is was strictly the bribery route. We offered them $2 per week, each, for not watching TV. After about another month, we figured out that we no longer needed to have cable, so we quit and used that money to up the bribe level a bit. They didn’t get smartphones until they started working and earning their own money, after they were adults. That solved that problem. Do you think that this method may work for you?
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