But if things interest you, does that not also provide dopamine? If the interesting things are easily available, are they "free" and addictive and bad? If they're good because they're interesting, is TikTok not interesting to those who like it? If you had a pinball machine and it distracted you, would that be bad, or a hobby? Is TikTok more compelling than pinball because of the algorithm? Is the algorithm not merely providing things that will likely interest you? Is interest bad now?
Wow this is a bad take and a half.
Apply the argument to abusing drugs now, and see how this argument throws all nuance out the window.
these products are intentionally designed to be addictive by some of the greatest minds of our generation. If you were intentionally designing society this would be the opposite of what you'd do.
Our children are effectively enslaved through basic trinkets and manipulation to serve as eye-balls for ad impressions to fuel equity value in silicon valley. It's fucked and it was intentionally designed to be this fucked.
The abstract of what you state makes sense, but the layers of manipulation on top of it are what the problem is.