The gambler and the social-media junkie
/The analogy between the gambler and the social-media junkie is hard to avoid. Tristan Harris, Google’s former design ethicist, calls your smartphone “The Slot Machine in Your Pocket”. Most smartphone apps use “intermittent variable rewards” to keep users hooked. Because rewards are variable, they are uncertain: you have to pull the lever to see what you are going to get. Adam Alter adds that, with the invention of the like button, users are gambling every time they post.
Every post is a lot cast for the contemporary equivalent of the God of Everything. What we are really asking for when we post a status is a verdict. In telling the machine something about ourselves, whatever else we are trying to achieve, we are asking for judgment.
Richard Seymour, The Twittering Machine