The Acceleration of Addictiveness

You might also be aware that all this is delivered by means of “persuasive design”—an umbrella term for an armory of psychological techniques borrowed directly from the designers of casino slot machines, for the express purpose of encouraging compulsive behavior. One example among hundreds is the ubiquitous drag-down-to-refresh gesture, which keeps... See more

When you sit down with a book, you understand the parameters of engagement. You know how long the book is. The book isn’t changing as you read it. It’s a solid, immutable thing. You and the book are on equal terms in many ways, as least from a physics point of view. You know what’s going to happen, and the book abides by its implicit contract, whic... See more

This is the vicious spiral that constitutes the psychological core of an addiction. You know you must stop, but you also can’t stop, because the very thing that’s hurting you – alcohol – has come to feel like the only means of controlling the negative emotions that, in fact, your drinking is helping to cause. Perhaps it seems melodramatic to compar

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“We could wind up with networks that have the principal effect of fostering addiction to a new generation of electronic narcotics ... their principal themes revolving around instant gratification ... their uses and content determined by mega-corporations pushing mindless consumption of things we don’t need and aren’t good for us.”

--Mitchell Kapor, ... See more