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As developers we need to take a moral stance and refuse to develop products that engender addiction.

by rmchugh 11y ago

mdcox 11y ago
Humans have an amazing capacity for addiction. It may be easy to say no to micropayment games, but "products that engender addiction" is a very broad and fuzzy category.
- schoen 11y ago
  Just for example, perhaps HN is one.
  - mycroft-holmes 11y ago
    I'm more addicted to HN than my phone.
cmyr 11y ago
This is very true. A sad reality of market competition is that it incentivizes creating things that take advantage of human instincts and low level responses, which are frequently misaligned with human-intelligent want. It's a pretty tricky thing to address, obviously, but it's worth keeping in mind when deciding how to spend your own time.
kough 11y ago
Be careful – that's your moral stance, not necessarily the only moral stance. "Developers" don't "need" to agree with your stance, that's just what you'd like. Would you rather someone gets addicted to Candy Crush or to alcohol?
- imgabe 11y ago
  That's a bit of a false dichotomy. It's quite possible to be addicted to neither and I think that would be most people's preference.
- scintill76 11y ago
  I would not be surprised to hear about relationships being destroyed, people being crippled emotionally, living in shame and depression, etc. over a gaming addiction and the consequences, just as we know classically comes from alcohol addiction. So no, it's not a meaningful choice, I wouldn't wish either on someone. IIRC I saw a Reddit post about someone's S.O. lying about hundreds or thousands of dollars of in-app gaming purchases, lying about quitting, etc.. I couldn't find it, but here's one about a person recognizing their own problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/StopGaming/comments/3oj8zg/spent_about_3500_plus_in_in_app_purchases_on_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/StopGaming/comments/3oj8zg/spent_ab...
  - EdwardDiego 11y ago
    > I would not be surprised to hear about relationships being destroyed, people being crippled emotionally, living in shame and depression, etc. over a gaming addiction and the consequences, just as we know classically comes from alcohol addiction. So no, it's not a meaningful choice, I wouldn't wish either on someone. There are very real and very severe physical effects of alcohol addiction, so the two are in no way comparable. A Candy Crush addiction is most equivalent to a gambling addiction.
    - scintill76 11y ago
      > There are very real and very severe physical effects of alcohol addiction, so the two are in no way comparable. I didn't name any physical effects. I did compare emotional and interpersonal effects of Candy Crush/gambling to those of alcoholism, so unless you disagree with those specific comparisons, gaming addiction is by definition comparable, in at least a few ways. I get your point, but I reject the GP's and your implication that gaming addiction is almost benign because it has no physical effects, or that we have to choose between two evils here, or that malicious marketers of alcohol (maybe tobacco would be a better one here) and deliberate designers of addictive games aren't both morally culpable for hurting people. (And on the physical effects, I wonder if gaming can alter brain chemistry enough that there actually could be physical effects... I don't know enough about it. Here's something from the article along those lines: "According to Eyal, checking in delivers a hit of dopamine to the brain, along with the craving for another hit.")
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  > Would you rather someone gets addicted to Candy Crush or to alcohol? Or a third option: I spend time helping build a society where the consumption of neither ends in addiction.
- PavlovsCat 11y ago
  > "Developers" don't "need" to agree with your stance Which in turn is your moral stance. > Would you rather someone gets addicted to Candy Crush or to alcohol? I'd rather have those "receptors" occupied by things that make people deeply happy while they do them, and then not make them cringe when they think back to them. That is, I'm assuming there is a certain lust for life and growth which can get hijacked and misdirected by addictions. Sure, what is an addiction may not so much depend on the activity as why and how it's done, and of course I can't draw the line for others; but on the other hand, let's not pretend there is no such line, or that there is no problem worthy of discussion.
- rmchugh 11y ago
  Agreed that it's my moral stance (I have lots more) but doctors for example take a moral stance as part of their profession, why shouldn't developers also do this? When software is creeping into all areas of endeavour, refusing to think about the moral consequences of one's actions is dangerous negligence. Shouldn't we have a crowdsourced Hippocratic oath for developers? Of course a one liner on HN is not perfectly formulated but I think the sentiment is right. I would rather people not get addicted at all. Alcohol I have nothing to do with, but the people who made Candy Crush are my colleagues and I feel they should have considered their actions.
markism 11y ago
This is really tricky when major products succeed because of their addictive capacity. So long as we measure engagement, getting users addicted is the holy grail.

As developers we need to take a moral stance and refuse to develop products that engender addiction.

by rmchugh 11y ago

As developers we need to take a moral stance and refuse to develop products that engender addiction.

mdcox 11y ago

Humans have an amazing capacity for addiction. It may be easy to say no to micropayment games, but "products that engender addiction" is a very broad and fuzzy category.

schoen 11y ago
Just for example, perhaps HN is one.
- mycroft-holmes 11y ago
  I'm more addicted to HN than my phone.

cmyr 11y ago

This is very true. A sad reality of market competition is that it incentivizes creating things that take advantage of human instincts and low level responses, which are frequently misaligned with human-intelligent want. It's a pretty tricky thing to address, obviously, but it's worth keeping in mind when deciding how to spend your own time.

kough 11y ago

Be careful – that's your moral stance, not necessarily the only moral stance. "Developers" don't "need" to agree with your stance, that's just what you'd like. Would you rather someone gets addicted to Candy Crush or to alcohol?

imgabe 11y ago
That's a bit of a false dichotomy. It's quite possible to be addicted to neither and I think that would be most people's preference.
scintill76 11y ago
I would not be surprised to hear about relationships being destroyed, people being crippled emotionally, living in shame and depression, etc. over a gaming addiction and the consequences, just as we know classically comes from alcohol addiction. So no, it's not a meaningful choice, I wouldn't wish either on someone. IIRC I saw a Reddit post about someone's S.O. lying about hundreds or thousands of dollars of in-app gaming purchases, lying about quitting, etc.. I couldn't find it, but here's one about a person recognizing their own problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/StopGaming/comments/3oj8zg/spent_about_3500_plus_in_in_app_purchases_on_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/StopGaming/comments/3oj8zg/spent_ab...
- EdwardDiego 11y ago
  > I would not be surprised to hear about relationships being destroyed, people being crippled emotionally, living in shame and depression, etc. over a gaming addiction and the consequences, just as we know classically comes from alcohol addiction. So no, it's not a meaningful choice, I wouldn't wish either on someone. There are very real and very severe physical effects of alcohol addiction, so the two are in no way comparable. A Candy Crush addiction is most equivalent to a gambling addiction.
  - scintill76 11y ago
    > There are very real and very severe physical effects of alcohol addiction, so the two are in no way comparable. I didn't name any physical effects. I did compare emotional and interpersonal effects of Candy Crush/gambling to those of alcoholism, so unless you disagree with those specific comparisons, gaming addiction is by definition comparable, in at least a few ways. I get your point, but I reject the GP's and your implication that gaming addiction is almost benign because it has no physical effects, or that we have to choose between two evils here, or that malicious marketers of alcohol (maybe tobacco would be a better one here) and deliberate designers of addictive games aren't both morally culpable for hurting people. (And on the physical effects, I wonder if gaming can alter brain chemistry enough that there actually could be physical effects... I don't know enough about it. Here's something from the article along those lines: "According to Eyal, checking in delivers a hit of dopamine to the brain, along with the craving for another hit.")
toomuchtodo 11y ago
> Would you rather someone gets addicted to Candy Crush or to alcohol? Or a third option: I spend time helping build a society where the consumption of neither ends in addiction.
PavlovsCat 11y ago
> "Developers" don't "need" to agree with your stance Which in turn is your moral stance. > Would you rather someone gets addicted to Candy Crush or to alcohol? I'd rather have those "receptors" occupied by things that make people deeply happy while they do them, and then not make them cringe when they think back to them. That is, I'm assuming there is a certain lust for life and growth which can get hijacked and misdirected by addictions. Sure, what is an addiction may not so much depend on the activity as why and how it's done, and of course I can't draw the line for others; but on the other hand, let's not pretend there is no such line, or that there is no problem worthy of discussion.
rmchugh 11y ago
Agreed that it's my moral stance (I have lots more) but doctors for example take a moral stance as part of their profession, why shouldn't developers also do this? When software is creeping into all areas of endeavour, refusing to think about the moral consequences of one's actions is dangerous negligence. Shouldn't we have a crowdsourced Hippocratic oath for developers? Of course a one liner on HN is not perfectly formulated but I think the sentiment is right. I would rather people not get addicted at all. Alcohol I have nothing to do with, but the people who made Candy Crush are my colleagues and I feel they should have considered their actions.

markism 11y ago

This is really tricky when major products succeed because of their addictive capacity. So long as we measure engagement, getting users addicted is the holy grail.