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Infinite scroll and engagement maximizing algorithms are the nicotine. I'm continuously shocked at how addictive phones can be for some people. There seems to
by api 2y ago
Infinite scroll and engagement maximizing algorithms are the nicotine.
I'm continuously shocked at how addictive phones can be for some people. There seems to be something about the form factor. Laptops and desktops don't do it the same way. Something about that touch screen in your pocket and your hand that you can just grab and scroll and get dopamine hits is really intense.
I have for a while called social media the "tobacco companies of the mind."
Social belongs in quotes too. As social media has evolved it has become progressively less social, less about communication and connecting people, and more just a crowdsourced chum factory built around addiction. Do Instagram or TikTok even have a concept of a social connection? Do people actually use these to talk to their friends?
- daniel_reetz 2y agoInstagram publicly states that most activity happens in DMs. I'm there entirely for my personal network.
- codetrotter 2y agoYou can follow people on TikTok and if people mutually follow each others they are your “friends”. TikTok has DMs. Yeah, these things count as social connections IMO. Even though your FYP (the “For You Page”) is determined algorithmically to show you things that you might be interested in from any user across the platform. (They also have a specific friend feed you can look at instead of the FYP. But if most people are like me then they still mainly scroll the FYP, not the friend feed on TikTok.)