Comstock's magazine 0620 - June June 2020 | Page 48

TECHNOLOGY ADDICTION
fun once you achieve mastery. It’s the
same reason we stop playing tic-tac-toe.”
For most successful online games,
he says, a team of data scientists called
product managers fine-tune the games’
engagement. They look for patterns,
and when they find them, they create
ways to make the game more fun to
keep players coming back. “The most
successful games are the most addictive
games,” says Otero, who has since left
the gaming world and now heads
Sacramento-based hedge fund
Alice Capital.
In 2014, entrepreneurs Mitch Gardner
and Rob Richardson launched a mobile
app to incentivize students to stay
off their phones in class. Pocket Points
tracks how long the phone is asleep and
tallies points, which can be redeemed for
discounts and deals at local businesses
and online. In schools, teachers can offer
unique rewards as prizes, such as dropping
a student’s lowest test score or giving
out a homework pass. Every college
and high school in the country has the
ability to use Pocket Points, says Gardner,
cofounder and chief operating officer of
the Chico-based business, adding that it
recently went live in middle schools too.
“We interviewed thousands of high
school students, parents and teachers,”
Gardner says. “Teachers all say kids are
addicted to phones. Students say the
parents are just as addicted. There’s some
contradictions and hypocrisy going on.”
In March, Pocket Points for families
was unveiled to help decrease screen
time as a unit. For example, if there are
four people in the family with a goal
to stay under eight hours a day, the reward
might be something like a movie
night or pizza for dinner, Gardner says.
As someone who runs an app business,
Gardner praises some aspects of
modern technology, such as the ease
of starting a business without much
equipment. He also appreciates there
seems to be less argument about the
reality of technology addiction.
“Technology addiction is not this
debate as much anymore,” Gardner
says. “Now it’s like, ‘Yep, it’s a thing.
What do we do about it?’”
Digital Deployment, which provides
web services to companies in the
Sacramento region, including Comstock’s,
has 20 employees who have
an average age of 37. With unlimited
vacations and flexible work hours,
constant availability can lead to “poor
notification hygiene,” says CEO Mac
Clemmens, a member of Comstock’s
Editorial Advisory Board. Once a year,
he has his team commit to one “unplugged
week.” No phones, no checking
work emails, no meetings. This
“digital detox” benefits the employee
and also helps the team know that they
can manage without being constantly
digitally connected. But stepping away
can be a struggle.
“Usually, it’s the high performers that
have the hardest time,” Clemmens says.
“They’re so productive, they don’t want
30
nearly
years
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48 comstocksmag.com | June 2020