One of the amusing parallels regarding Facebook (and similar products) is the way your likes, messages, and notifications, are basically like a little scoreboar

One of the amusing parallels regarding Facebook (and similar products) is the way your likes, messages, and notifications, are basically like a little scoreboard, even in about the same location as old arcade games, and emphasized as strongly as anything else on the site - bright red against a similar shade of blue. It definitely contributes to that impulsive feeling I remember (prior to closing my account) to just keep checking. Similar to the worst psychological tactics and "reward-for-suffering" schemes employed by some game developers, e.g. Farmville, Curiosity, World of Warcraft, etc. It'd be nice to see gamification used for good rather than kinda-evil, but the potential users they alienate with these tactics are clearly a minority compared to the ones they manage to attract and keep hooked - or else they wouldn't have managed to stay successful products for as long as they have.