How your phone keeps you scrolling ... even when you want to stop

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.5K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2026

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

You pick up your phone to do one quick task, and suddenly 20 minutes have flown by without you even noticing. How do apps do that to you? Today on the show, we bring you an episode of Short Wave that explains how your phone is designed specifically to hold your attention.

Fact checking by Tyler Jones.

Connect with The Indicator
— Sign up for The Indicator’s brand new newsletter
— Buy the Planet Money book
— Find our socials, YouTube and more!
— For sponsor-free episodes, subscribe to NPR+

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	NPR.
0:06.1	This is the indicator from Planet Money.
0:08.1	I'm Adrian Ma.
0:09.5	Two landmark trials this year found tech companies guilty of harming children through their
0:13.8	apps.
0:14.8	And although meta and Google are in the process of appealing those decisions, there is a
0:19.0	growing awareness that social media apps can be addictive.
0:22.7	On that score, we're bringing you an episode from our friends at NPR's Daily Science Podcast, Shortwave.
0:28.7	It's hosted by Emily Kwong, and in a recent episode, she spoke with Michaeline Ducleff.
0:33.7	She's the author of a new book called Dopamine Kids about the psychology of being glued to a screen.
0:39.8	They'll pick up the story from here after the break.
0:48.2	Okay, Michaeline, so this story begins in the casinos of Las Vegas.
0:52.5	Take us back in time and explain what was happening there.
0:55.5	Yeah. So we're going to rewind 40 years ago, way back in the 1980s, when the casino industry
1:02.4	underwent a massive transformation and created what many scientists think is the most addictive
1:08.0	form of gambling ever. Oh, how did they do that? So they went around and
1:12.2	ripped up nearly all the mechanical slot machines and all those green felt poker tables
1:17.7	and replaced them all with digital versions of these games. So video-based slot machines,
1:24.8	video-based poker machines. Oh, no. They did this because these machines were way cheaper to maintain, but also they allowed the casino
1:34.0	industry to add in all these extra features to them.
1:37.3	It's like they were apps before they were apps.
1:41.1	The gambling games just played on screens.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 10 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.