It's all in the software. Avoiding systems that work against you is harder than ever. Even our brains betray us, falling for the dopamine rushes expertly assembled by the exploiters.
An unchecked drive for profit maximisation is often at the source of this evil. Cory Doctorow has expertly described the phenomenon in his essays¹ about enshittification, a term he coined. He has raised a lot of awareness, yet we're still in a timeline where non-profit, decentralised services have small market shares. Perhaps the Leidensdruck, i.e. the degree of suffering, is not yet great enough?
> Even our brains betray us, falling for the dopamine rushes expertly assembled by the exploiters.
I had this discussion with other people who deleted their account at some website that can be considered "social media" in a broader sense. They told me that the reason why they deleted their accounts was that they realized that these bursts of dopamine rush that they got from the respective site was not good for them.
I, on the other hand, have never felt this kind of dopamine rush, even though I was a likely even more active user on the respective site. My reason for really wanting to delete my whole account was "purely logical" (I hated a lot of decisions that the respective company made).
What I want to tell with this story is that I thus see strong evidence that the "sensitivity" of people for dopamine rushes from websites/games varies a lot between people (and I am very likely one who is at least "mostly" immune to them).
Really: if I had to name one thing that gives me dopamine rushes that are so much more intense (I would say: "multiple magnitudes more intense") than any dopamine rush that I got from any social media site that I visited, then I would say "understanding deep mathematical proofs and strongly simplifying them" (but I agree that these dopamine rushes are earned much more toughly :-) ).
Self-control is a factor too. Some people might get a big rush but have strong frontal lobes, other people might get a smaller rush but have low self-control and still end up consuming a lot / having their behavior reinforced.
I think susceptibility to negative emotion is relevant too. Not all of the addictive content feels good. Lots of companies have figured out how to make negativity addictive.
An unchecked drive for profit maximisation is often at the source of this evil. Cory Doctorow has expertly described the phenomenon in his essays¹ about enshittification, a term he coined. He has raised a lot of awareness, yet we're still in a timeline where non-profit, decentralised services have small market shares. Perhaps the Leidensdruck, i.e. the degree of suffering, is not yet great enough?
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¹ https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/