Radio was the original moral panic. Then television. Then video games. Now we're on to social media. But this time feels different. Why? Because even the adults are noticing they can't control themselves. Their attention in other things is suffering. Our brains are being trained to seek short dopamine hits from reels instead of entering a real flow state that solves fulfilling challenges.
Social media reel scrolling creates a "potato chip" kind of flow state... it seems to satisfy you in the moment, but even after you've consumed more than you thought you would, you're still unsatisfied. The introduction of a new medium is not novel, but the magnitude of the effect is.
TV and early computer games were not designed to drive addiction.
Well tv was looking for ways to attract people and also game makers.
But it wasn’t like it is with social media YT specifically designed to suck as much attention as possible. Games nowadays are include much more addictive mechanics like loot boxes.
TV is vastly different, it’s tailored to demographics of watchers and at the time the understanding of psychology when it comes to marketing and retention was substantially less developed than it is now.
These days, it also serves to encourage people to build worldviews around fictional scenarios much the same as social media encourages building worldviews around fictional information.
The closest thing I can find is in the floods cause rain sense, so please post the links
To put this in perspective, people said the same moral panic about tv and that has also been rigorously proven false yet disagreed with by laymen.
Radio was the original moral panic. Then television. Then video games. Now we're on to social media. But this time feels different. Why? Because even the adults are noticing they can't control themselves. Their attention in other things is suffering. Our brains are being trained to seek short dopamine hits from reels instead of entering a real flow state that solves fulfilling challenges.
Social media reel scrolling creates a "potato chip" kind of flow state... it seems to satisfy you in the moment, but even after you've consumed more than you thought you would, you're still unsatisfied. The introduction of a new medium is not novel, but the magnitude of the effect is.
TV and early computer games were not designed to drive addiction.
Well tv was looking for ways to attract people and also game makers.
But it wasn’t like it is with social media YT specifically designed to suck as much attention as possible. Games nowadays are include much more addictive mechanics like loot boxes.
TV is vastly different, it’s tailored to demographics of watchers and at the time the understanding of psychology when it comes to marketing and retention was substantially less developed than it is now.
These days, it also serves to encourage people to build worldviews around fictional scenarios much the same as social media encourages building worldviews around fictional information.
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ADHD is a real neurological condition that people are born with; not something learned via an app. Post links to research please.