3 ms·

This article helps articulate this deeply creepy feeling I have about where online business is going. Does anyone else think using "addictive" or "habit-formi

by neilk 17y ago

This article helps articulate this deeply creepy feeling I have about where online business is going. Does anyone else think using "addictive" or "habit-forming" to describe your product design goals is deeply immoral? And yet this probably appears in a lot of Powerpoints pitched every day in the Valley. I had to sit through just such a presentation a few weeks ago, and I work at a non-profit. The whole thrust of this Valley drone's presentation was that he could get users to value anything, any behavior that the customer wanted, by means of psychological tricks and social rewards. Now that may not even be true, but when your Powerpoint starts referencing Pavlov and Zimbardo I think you have to take a look in the mirror.

jim-greer 17y ago
It depends on the context - selling items on eBay is addictive and habit-forming. So is running your own business, or running marathons. I notice that you have 2258 karma. I think it's safe to say that you've formed a habit or even addiction to HN, but hopefully a rewarding one.
- neilk 17y ago
  I disagree that these things can be conflated. Just because you find something rewarding, it does not mean you are addicted, or (more broadly) that any of one's reward systems are being manipulated. If my internal reward systems are telling me that running is good, for the most part it's because running is good. Even on HN, there's a fundamentally useful activity -- contribution to discussion. The measurement system is distributed to users, but that's because the benefits are similarly distributed. Things cross into "drug" territory when most of their value comes from tricking your reward system. Even drugs can be beneficial from time to time, but when too much of a person's activity is about chasing simulated rewards, we start calling that person "addicted". Most drugs manipulate the brain's desire for pleasure, or the rush of excitement. If we believe the author of the OP, FarmVille manipulates our desire for social connectedness.
  - jim-greer 17y ago
    So you can't be addicted to running? Or posting on Hacker News? You have a fair point, the dictionary definition of addiction includes words like 'damaging' and 'pathological'. But the mechanism of addiction is very similar whether the ends are beneficial or not. And a lot of the people use the word to apply to things that are not terribly negative.
    - neilk 17y ago
      Oh, I'll agree with you on that. Sometimes people even use 'addiction' in a positive sense, to describe their dedication to something. But in the context of this debate I want to draw a clearer distinction.

by neilk 17y ago

jim-greer 17y ago

It depends on the context - selling items on eBay is addictive and habit-forming. So is running your own business, or running marathons. I notice that you have 2258 karma. I think it's safe to say that you've formed a habit or even addiction to HN, but hopefully a rewarding one.

neilk 17y ago
I disagree that these things can be conflated. Just because you find something rewarding, it does not mean you are addicted, or (more broadly) that any of one's reward systems are being manipulated. If my internal reward systems are telling me that running is good, for the most part it's because running is good. Even on HN, there's a fundamentally useful activity -- contribution to discussion. The measurement system is distributed to users, but that's because the benefits are similarly distributed. Things cross into "drug" territory when most of their value comes from tricking your reward system. Even drugs can be beneficial from time to time, but when too much of a person's activity is about chasing simulated rewards, we start calling that person "addicted". Most drugs manipulate the brain's desire for pleasure, or the rush of excitement. If we believe the author of the OP, FarmVille manipulates our desire for social connectedness.
- jim-greer 17y ago
  So you can't be addicted to running? Or posting on Hacker News? You have a fair point, the dictionary definition of addiction includes words like 'damaging' and 'pathological'. But the mechanism of addiction is very similar whether the ends are beneficial or not. And a lot of the people use the word to apply to things that are not terribly negative.
  - neilk 17y ago
    Oh, I'll agree with you on that. Sometimes people even use 'addiction' in a positive sense, to describe their dedication to something. But in the context of this debate I want to draw a clearer distinction.