What's your Poison? Talking About Cellphone Addiction with Dr. Jim Roberts
Dr. Roberts is a marketing professor who has been studying consumer behavior for 30 years. Beginning with compulsive buying (aka shopping addiction), - ‘addiction’ being defined as an action or behavior you continue despite the negative consequences - he moved into social media and technology addiction.
His book Too Much of A Good Thing talks about the tipping point with technology, where healthy, productive use turns into destructive use. He enlightens us about the phrase phubbing - snubbing others in favor of our smartphones. We have all been either victim or perpetrator of phubbing - which can lead to conflict, dissatisfaction, and unhappiness in our relationships in love and in life.
How one uses social media can result in positive and negative feeling states - active use can help us feel positive and passive use (called lurking and creeping) can make us feel competitive and upset and therefore have a negative effect.
So what can we do with our smartphones and technology, both a necessary evil? “We can learn to use these devices in a healthy way by wresting some of the power away from social media and back to us.” Dr. Roberts suggests we find “the digital sweet spot and use technology for all the wonderful things it can do for us.” And finally, while driving, lock your cell phone in the trunk!!!
Meet This Episode's Guest
james Roberts
James A. Roberts is the Ben H. Williams Professor of Marketing at Baylor University (Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln) and has been a member of the marketing faculty since 1991. He has had approximately 80 articles published in numerous academic journals. He is also the author of two books, “Shiny Objects” (Harper Collins) and “Too Much of a Good Thing: Are You Addicted to your Smartphone?”
Dr. Roberts is a nationally recognized expert on consumer behavior and has been quoted extensively in the media and has appeared on the CBS Early Show, ABC World News Tonight, ABC Good Morning America, NBC The Today Show, and has been quoted and/or featured on The O’Reilly Factor, The Doctors on CBS, , Time.com, US News & World Report, New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Glamour, and many other newspapers, magazines, websites, and television appearances.
Current research interests include the pursuit of happiness through money and material possessions and investigating the antecedents and consequences of smartphone addiction and its impact on personal happiness and professional productivity.
