Yehudit Katz and Itamar Cohen | Life in the 21st Century – Addicted, But Functioning: A Conversation About Modern Addictions

We are all addicted to something.

There are those who smoke weed every evening. There are those who open porn “just for a second.”

And there are those who think they’re not addicted to anything because they only check their phone 146 times a day.

We live in a world where every unpleasant emotion has an immediate solution:

Bored? TikTok.

Stressed? A hit.

Lonely? Instagram.

Don’t want to think about life? There’s a series with eight seasons.

Today’s addictions look just like ordinary life:

Work, children, friends—and in between, another scroll, another hit, another video, another episode, another purchase, another game.

And everything is fine—until one day we try to stop and discover that we weren’t really the ones asking.

At a special evening hosted by Noga Center, Yehudit Katz and Dr. Itamar Cohen will meet for a live conversation in front of an audience about modern addictions:

Those found in our pockets, in our beds, in our living rooms, and sometimes as a regular part of our evening routine.

When does pleasure become a habit, and a habit become dependence? Is it possible to be completely addicted and still function normally?

Why do we return again and again to things that no longer truly do us any good?

And do screens, cannabis, porn, games, shopping, and work activate the same mechanisms in us—or are we too quick to call everything an “addiction”?

We’ll talk about the connection between addiction and anxiety, loneliness, boredom, and stress.

About a world where almost nothing ends by itself. There’s always another video, another episode, another post, and another opportunity to briefly escape ourselves.

We’ll try to understand how something that looks harmless from the outside gradually becomes something we can’t relax, fall asleep, or enjoy ourselves without.

Why willpower is usually a pretty poor solution.

And what can really help? How do we reclaim our ability to choose?

It will be funny. It will be a little uncomfortable. We’ll probably all check our phones in the middle.

Yehudit Katz is an author, coach, and lecturer specializing in positive psychology. She hosts the podcast Thinking Good and is the author of the bestseller Thinking Good—Dare to Live the Life That Suits You.

Dr. Itamar Cohen is the author of The Drug Dictionary and a lecturer in the field.

Noga Center is hosted at the Hall in the City, 5 Ben-Gurion Street.

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