Non-addictive Information Systems

Addiction in the context of information technology gained increased public interest within the last years. Only recently, companies like Apple, Google, or Instagram announced to fight “Smartphone Addiction” and integrated respective features in their systems. However, if and how such features really help is still an open question. Right now, there is only a very rudimentary understanding of addictions in IS and “IT-triggered disorders”. Even in clinical research there is no consensus on the nature of such addictions yet. Nevertheless, the omnipresence of information technology in our daily lives and its unpredictable effects on our moods require to address this problem in a profound manner. Non-addictive Information Systems intend to bridge findings from Psychology and Neuroscience to the Information Systems terminology and provide meaningful design implications to create technology that protects its user instead of only make him hooked.