alt Hacker NewsThe smoking gun here is that they actually hired psychologists and experts in creating addictive stuff from e.g. the gambling industry. It clearly shows that their intent was "make this as addictive as possible."
Then they ignored tons and tons of warning signs that this was having a negative effect especially on children and the elderly.
Now I think they need to hit YouTube, TikTok, and addiction-engineered loot box games. If we're establishing the precedent that addiction-engineering is bad, that's a huge win for our civilization.
Pretty much the entire mobile ecosystem is a hellscape of black hat attacks on the human central nervous system. You can do it via a web browser or a desktop too but when you do it on a phone the portability and something about the form factor and touch interface seems to supercharge it.
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> Then they ignored tons and tons of warning signs that this was having a negative effect especially on children and the elderly.
So long as the changes produced (to their belief) increases in advertising revenue, they didn't care. More ad money was all that mattered.
>when you do it on a phone the portability and something about the form factor and touch interface seems to supercharge it
I recall reading something a while back (maybe even by someone at Rovio) that the simple finger motions across the small screen that were then novel to Angry Birds and the other early mobile touch games had some unique effect on the brain that other interfaces don't. The game mechanics are similar to those in Flash/Shockwave games going back to the 90s, but they become a lot more compelling on a small touchscreen compared to a mouse.
> The smoking gun here is that they actually hired psychologists and experts in creating addictive stuff from e.g. the gambling industry. It clearly shows that their intent was "make this as addictive as possible."
The Games industry, including everyone's favorite Valve, does the same thing btw. And the result is no less disgusting.
> It clearly shows that their intent was "make this as addictive as possible."
Isn't engagement the holy grail of any startup though? What was wrong (from a legal standpoint) about what Meta did here? I hate social media as much as the next guy just curious as to the grounds on which they were brought to justice. I have seen a couple allusions to their deliberately hiding the harmful effects of their products but have yet to see any specifics.
All those smart Stanford grads got to make the world a better place by psychologically damaging millions of children.
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From the casinos (Natasha Dow Schull and Addiction by Design) to Stanford and BJ Fogg's Persuasive Design Lab fast forward to AI to hyperboost the addiction and that's where we're at.
Not even grown ups have the capacity to resist the brainwashing capacity and the power asymmetry.