I haven’t read the study, but I’ve read the comments so far.

I wonder if this mechanism is the same mechanism that impacts, say, swipe-focused dating websites, as well? And Twitter feeds with super-short messages. A lot of the most viral modern tech has been bite-sized content feeds of various types.

▲

CGMthrowaway 24 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

They are all reward hacking, but tiktok is audiovisual immersion, dating apps are romantic validation and twitter is outrage/information foraging

▲

toomuchtodo 9 minutes ago | parent [-]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16101310 (2018)

> "Matt Mayberry, who works at a California startup called Dopamine Labs, says it's common knowledge in the industry that Instagram exploits this craving by strategically withholding "likes" from certain users. If the photo-sharing app decides you need to use the service more often, it'll show only a fraction of the likes you've received on a given post at first, hoping you'll be disappointed with your haul and check back again in a minute or two."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28763413 also speaks to this.

(Dopamine Labs is now boundless.ai, only one example, the reward hacking mentioned is everywhere in socials, adult content, sports betting, for reward maxxing)

▲

doctoboggan 5 minutes ago | parent [-]

I think that should be illegal. I don’t know how to legislate it in a way that makes sense and actually accomplishes the goal (or if that’s even possible), but I would support someone trying to figure it out.

	▲	gunsle 2 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Full social media ban, problem solved. There’s no point wasting more time discussing these things when they’re very obviously a large net negative on society.
	▲	toomuchtodo 5 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Call your state and federal representatives, it's the only way. Run for office if you have the appetite for it.

▲

DeluluDon 25 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's about the same amount of time that attention is given to any focus, most of those are less than a SFV length.

It really makes sense now. Emotional dysregulation comes into play and now I wonder that it's not just me who is quietly angry (at Match Group) all the time while still addicted to swipe based dating apps.

▲

aw00gah 21 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Leetcode became popular along the same time line.

Coincides with GenZ aging into adulthood after being educated in the debunked "3-cueing" or "whole language" reading education model. So far 40 states have pivoted away from it as states that switched first saw reading comprehension improve.

Whole lot of social experimentation without informed consent being put on people by 50+ year olds who run the world and never had to jump through the same thought policing.

Psychiatrist argues Americans have lost their grit for irrational reality we are forced to live in and actually are snowflakes: https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/02/how-we-...

▲

t-writescode 20 minutes ago | parent [-]

Eeeh, Leetcode is older. I’m a millenial and it was popular when I was going through - 10ish years earlier.

▲

aw00gah 15 minutes ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

▲

crindy 12 minutes ago | parent [-]

I don't think this comment is inline with community guidelines. "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

	▲	jg0r3 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		it's fine, the above comment was snarky as well.