If you think about it, you have to come to the conclusion that it is true. Addiction is playing a key role in our society and in our daily lives. And to prove it to you, I'll give you a few examples to showcase this claim. I will also tell you why, in my opinion, this is a very bad thing.
But first, we need to define what an addiction is. Wikipedia tells us that "addiction is a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences. Despite the involvement of a number of psychosocial factors, a biological process – one which is induced by repeated exposure to an addictive stimulus – is the core pathology that drives the development and maintenance of an addiction. The two properties that characterize all addictive stimuli are that they are reinforcing (i.e., they increase the likelihood that a person will seek repeated exposure to them) and intrinsically rewarding (i.e., they are perceived as being inherently positive, desirable, and pleasurable)."
A first example of addiction in our daily lives would be what we eat. There are a big quantity of sugar and salt in most aliment you can buy in a supermarket. The reason is very simple. Salt is a flavor enhancer which makes it pleasing to eat. Sugar is also a flavor that is pleasing for most humans but it is also having an effect on your brain. It releases dopamine which is the substance released when you consume drugs or are having sex. Note that both, sugar and salt, have a negative impact on your health if you consume them in too great quantity. Also, as you are eating more because of the addiction, the risk for obesity also increases.
A second example of addiction in our daily lives would be what we see. I'm talking about commercials. Indeed, if you are watching television, you are exposed to commercials. If you walk in the streets, you are exposed to commercials. And finally, on Internet, the most common way to monetize content is through commercials. The same is true for newspapers. The whole art of marketing is to expose you to stimuli, the sexual one being one of the strongest, that will make you feel missing something. And that missing feeling should be answered with the product they want to sell you.
With these two examples, we already have a good view on how the economy is working. First, make you want to buy something you don't want in the first place by exploiting your weaknesses. Than make you addicted to the product so, once you bought it a few times, chances are you will buy them again later. And no one cares if your psychological or physical health is hurt in the process. Well, this is a first reason why I think addiction, and especially, the way we use addiction in our society is a problem but it is far from being the main reason why I want to oppose to it. But first, let's give a last example of addiction in our daily lives to show you that it is not just true for one industry but that, if you dig deeper, you'll come to the conclusion that it is a widespread technique used in every industry.
The third example being social networks, smart phones and the new technologies we adopted those last 15 years. Have you ever wondered why you are being notified in real time and per one action at a time instead of being notified once a day and have a summary of what happened that day ? It is because, notifications in real time also release dopamine. You are pleased every time you receive a notification and that makes you want to use their services even more in order to get even more notifications (think of facebook likes) and, in the process, your dopamine. The same thing goes for why updates on smart phones are not automatic but you need to pull your feed to get new updates. The gesture is the same than it is for cash machine you can find in the casinos. You pull, you get new content, you have a micro feeling of reward by dopamine. If you think seriously about it, you'll find plenty of similar examples in the Internet industry but also on other industries as well.
You may think that, on the contrary of the food addiction, this one is not as problematic as it does not have a negative impact on your health. That would be a wrong conclusion as the true problem with addiction is not that it has negative impact on your health but, as with the drugs, the problem is that you WANT to continue your addictive behavior because you became dependent of it. It means that, if you agree with the fact that we base our selling strategies on getting customer addicted, then it means that any manufacturer is nothing more than a drug dealer. That is already quite disturbing to think of economic actors in this way but it is not even the worst part of it ... The worst part is that, because you are addicted to this society, even if you don't like it, you will have a very difficult time changing your behavior because of your addictions. You are addicted to a sick society and most people, seeing society as pleasurable will want to defend it. The ones who are aware that there is a problem with society will have both a hard time convincing the others but they will also have a hard time living by their principles as they were raised in a society that made them addict in the first place. Let that sink in !