Comment by functionmouse
20 days ago
The more these companies pay behavioral psychologists to ensure users can't escape, the more users can't escape. The better they get at doing it to people. The end goal is more people hooked than not, spending more time than not scrolling, forgetting, dulling. This is a doomsday level threat.
I don't think it is in fact such a threat at all, but at least that claim is not completely impossible, and I agree there needs to be caution around these kinds of apps.
However, that caution and legislation needs to be properly specific. If companies are in fact paying behavioural psychologists to maximize addictiveness, this is indeed the kind of thing a ban should be based on, not incredibly generic app features.
It's tough because they are not putting "maximize addictiveness" in the job description
Yup, agreed. I don't trust these companies for a second, but I also don't want overreach.
Also, though this isn't super relevant, I am not actually personally too worried if they are really using behavioural psychologists. Most psychology is such junk science and most research psychologists struggle with such basic math and stats that I am extremely skeptical they'd be gaining anything from having a person like that on hand.
I think the reality is that the addictiveness is engineered with simple A/B and other kinds of testing and data, and this kind of engineering / research is better done by people with other qualifications. This would be the thing to look for and demand documentation and evidence about, if we were serious about limiting this kind of thing.