I don't think this is "addiction". Its clearly operant conditioning. You aren't going to suffer physical ailments like an Alcoholic or Heroin-abuser (or heck: even a coffee-drinker) would if you "stop pushing the button"
I'm pretty sure that our concepts of "addiction" (including "willpower") are mostly pseudo-science. While psychologists are carefully studying the issues, the mass media needs to keep making movies and stories, and those stories do NOT reflect upon reality very well. Even well-researched stories, like Inside Out, or Finding Nemo (Dory's character is a very well researched example of memory loss) may end up obsolete as research moves forward. (IIRC: Inside Out was initially based on some psychology research. But the research already dramatically changed by the time Inside Out was out of production, and it was too late to change the story at that point).
The sad truth is: most of the psychology the layman knows is wrong. Its "story" psychology, created for drama and storytelling. Not "real" psychology, which actually predicts human behavior.
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In any case, I believe that lootboxes are a clear, and simple, example of operant conditioning. We know how to "deprogram" operant conditioning. You either:
1. Remove the reward entirely -- Without a reward, and people will stop. It may take 10,000 cycles, but eventually all subjects stop when the reward is fully taken out of the picture. Its surprising how long subjects will continue their behavior in the absence of a reward, but it will eventually stop.
2. Introduce punishments -- Shock the user, or cause other forms of pain. If the punishment is greater than the reward, the subject will eventually stop.
As far as I know, those are the two ways to stop a conditioned behavior. Social pressure may probably serve as #2, but in my experience, it puts a lot of strain on the social relationships (ex: subject may just start lying instead of telling the truth about their behavior). In effect, using social pressure to stop #2 may only cause the subject to become more trained in the act of lying.
I suggest reading "Glow Kids" [1], and then telling how different is digital addiction from any other form of physical/chemical addiction.
While there are many healthy kids and highly functioning adults who grew up with electronics and playing games (myself included), the fact is that these last 10 years have been a landmine for kids and adults alike in terms of dark patterns and psychological manipulation at scale.
I would love if we as a society would use the word "compulsion" for things that are not physical addictions, but I feel like that battle was lost some time ago, so I gave up.
I'm currently reading The Dream Machine and it's my impression from that book that Skinner's work was largely discredited (or at least his results were greatly exaggerated).
I think a core tenant of his work was that there is no mental state at all and that everything is just conditioning.
And this mechanism might be more palatable if it got applied both ways: I get a game and then we roll the dice [144] to see if I have to pay full price or just with some junk I have lying around in the house. Same odds as that legendary(?) skin.
I don't think this is "addiction". Its clearly operant conditioning. You aren't going to suffer physical ailments like an Alcoholic or Heroin-abuser (or heck: even a coffee-drinker) would if you "stop pushing the button"
I'm pretty sure that our concepts of "addiction" (including "willpower") are mostly pseudo-science. While psychologists are carefully studying the issues, the mass media needs to keep making movies and stories, and those stories do NOT reflect upon reality very well. Even well-researched stories, like Inside Out, or Finding Nemo (Dory's character is a very well researched example of memory loss) may end up obsolete as research moves forward. (IIRC: Inside Out was initially based on some psychology research. But the research already dramatically changed by the time Inside Out was out of production, and it was too late to change the story at that point).
The sad truth is: most of the psychology the layman knows is wrong. Its "story" psychology, created for drama and storytelling. Not "real" psychology, which actually predicts human behavior.
-----------
In any case, I believe that lootboxes are a clear, and simple, example of operant conditioning. We know how to "deprogram" operant conditioning. You either:
1. Remove the reward entirely -- Without a reward, and people will stop. It may take 10,000 cycles, but eventually all subjects stop when the reward is fully taken out of the picture. Its surprising how long subjects will continue their behavior in the absence of a reward, but it will eventually stop.
2. Introduce punishments -- Shock the user, or cause other forms of pain. If the punishment is greater than the reward, the subject will eventually stop.
As far as I know, those are the two ways to stop a conditioned behavior. Social pressure may probably serve as #2, but in my experience, it puts a lot of strain on the social relationships (ex: subject may just start lying instead of telling the truth about their behavior). In effect, using social pressure to stop #2 may only cause the subject to become more trained in the act of lying.