You can plot all activities on a spectrum of dopamine 'cheapness'. On one side of the spectrum is slot machines, various drugs, and doomscrolling. These generally involve little effort, and involve 'variable ratio reinforcement' which is where you get rewards at unpredictable intervals in such a way that you get addicted. Generally, after a long session of one of these activities, you feel like crap.

On the other side of the spectrum is more wholesome long-horizon activities like a challenging side project, career progression, or fitness goals. There's certainly an element of variable ratio reinforcement in all of these, but because the rewards are so much more tangible, and you get to exercise more of your agency, these activities generally feel quite meaningful on reflection.

Playing pinball is somewhere in the middle, probably on the cheaper side of the spectrum. Introspective people can generally reflect on a session and decide whether it was a good use of their time or not.

I really think that 'how do you feel after a long session of this' is a good measuring stick. Very few people will tell you that they feel good after a long session of social media scrolling or short-form content.

Another good measuring stick is 'do you want to want to be doing this?'. I want to want to go to the gym and gain 10kg of muscle. I do not want to want to spend hours on tiktok every day.

If we look at the effects, no, I don’t think so. I see how pinball could be optimized for addictiveness, but I don’t see a lot of people devoting all their free time to it.

Now, it is more nuanced than that. Is addiction bad for us? And at what point do we say we’re addicted to something? For me personally, when I can’t stop doing something (say, watching YouTube instead of working on a project), I won’t be happy long-term. It would be more gratifying short-term, sure, but I’d say it’s still not good.