I am slightly salty about this because I had complained about the same effect on reddit with the red inbox — I disabled my own inbox years ago — but nobody real

I am slightly salty about this because I had complained about the same effect on reddit with the red inbox — I disabled my own inbox years ago — but nobody really cared. It’s a more general case of advertising pollution. Just as it benefits advertisers to make viewers uncomfortable and manipulate their attention, Reddit and Twitter (and Facebook!) systematically display messages that make users uncomfortable to get their attention, stimulate emotional vulnerability, and create opportunities for marketers to step in with a palliative, “shopping therapy”.