Technology addictions (TA) have become a global scourge in recent times, yet in information systems (IS) literature, while a lot of research is being done from developed countries and health-related disciplines, little attention is being paid to this menace by IS scholars from developing countries. To address this issue, this chapter provides a viewpoint on the future research that seeks to investigate from a multidisciplinary and stakeholder perspective what the nature of TA from developing country context is. It will also determine how the socio-technical interaction between human motivations and technology features result in TA, which is novel in IS literature.
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Technology Addiction (TA) has engaged the attention of Information Systems (IS) scholars in recent times (Nyamadi & Boateng, 2018; Tarafdar, Gupta, & Turel, 2015; Turel, Serenko, & Giles, 2011). This research from the researcher’s perspective looks at addiction as a state where one feels preoccupied with an uncoerced compulsion to repeat or continue the behavior that has severe negative consequences. Griffiths defined TA as “non-chemical (behavioral) addictions which involve human-machine interaction” (Griffiths, 2005). He further stated that “technology addictions can be passive (e.g., television) or active (e.g., computer games) and usually contain inducing and reinforcing features which may contribute to the promotion of addictive tendencies” (Griffiths, 2005). Several forms of these TAs have engaged the attention of researchers. For example; excessive microblogging (Li, Guo, & Sun, 2012), online games (Charlton & Danforth, 2007, Vinet & Zhedanov, 2010), internet (Akin & İskender, 2011), smartphones or mobile phones (Billieux, Maurage, Lopez-Fernandez, Kuss, & Griffiths, 2015), mobile email (Turel & Serenko, 2010), instant messaging (Huang & Leung, 2009), Social Network Site (SNS), and excessive usage (Andreassen, 2015). This paper will focus on three (3) different types of technology addictions, namely; online gaming addictions, smartphone addictions, and Social Networking Site (SNS) addictions.
The term Online Gaming Addiction (OGA) will be used synonymously with Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) in this work. Section 3 of Diagnostics and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th ed. (DSM - 5) published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) categorically mentioned Internet Gaming Disorder as the first TA that needs further research (APA, 2013). APA (2013) defined IGD as “persistent and recurrent use of the internet to engage in games, often with other players, leading to impairment or clinically significant distress.” According to Jing and Hock (2012), the most popular game mode, which has one of the highest tendencies of being addictive, is Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). For example, World of Warcraft (WoW).
Smartphone addiction involves excessive interactions with a smartphone device, and mainly, the application functions it provides (Turel & Serenko, 2010). There is an emerging trend of compulsive and addictive usage of smartphones in recent times (Zhang et al., 2014). Smartphone users can also display psychological and behavioral maladaptive dependency, which may result in adverse problems (Zhang, Chongyang, & Matthew, 2014). These problematic uses of smartphones have resulted in harmful and disturbing outcomes (Wang, Lee, Yang, & Li, 2016).