Behavioral Economics of Addiction in the Age of a Super Smart Society: Society 5.0

Abstract

In behavioral economics, violation of rationality in human judgment and decision making has been investigated. In neoclassical economics, on the contrary, almost all human behavior (in- cluding addiction) has been assumed to be rational. Recent developments in Neuroeconomics have revealed neural foundations for human judgment and decision making. Cyber technologies offer new risks for new types of addiction (e.g., internet addiction, online video game addiction, and smartphone addiction); while these technologies can potentially offer new intervention methods for the treatment of addiction. In this review, current findings in the studies of addiction in the age of “super smart society” (i.e., societies highly digitized and connected via SNSs) are introduced and future directions are discussed.