Social Media Copies Gambling Methods 'To Create Psychological Cravings' (theguardian.com)

Social media platforms are using the same techniques as gambling firms to create psychological dependencies and ingrain their products in the lives of their users, experts warn. From a report: These methods are so effective they can activate similar mechanisms as cocaine in the brain, create psychological cravings and even invoke "phantom calls and notifications" where users sense the buzz of a smartphone, even when it isn't really there. "Facebook, Twitter and other companies use methods similar to the gambling industry to keep users on their sites," said Natasha Schull, the author of Addiction by Design, which reported how slot machines and other systems are designed to lock users into a cycle of addiction. "In the online economy, revenue is a function of continuous consumer attention -- which is measured in clicks and time spent."

Comments

So is everyone

[SuperKendall]

"Gamification" is a concept widespread now; it's not just social media that is using this.

But is this really a bad thing? If there's something I want to use, why not enjoy using it more?

The only issue I see is when people don't realize something has an addictive element to it. But who does not realize that these days, especially of social media? That is talked about widely. People can and do quit. And social media is a healthier drug than some others.

Re:So is everyone

[decipher_saint]

If a person is up all night worrying about their number of Twitter followers the game is playing them

Re:So is everyone

[CanHasDIY]

But is this really a bad thing? If there's something I want to use, why not enjoy using it more?

This isn't about "something you want to use," it's about using knowledge of psychology to subtly manipulate people into using something more than they would if they weren't being manipulated.

Re:So is everyone

[tomhath]

Not really "knowledge of psychology", more like Marketing 101.

Re:So is everyone

[vux984]

"But is this really a bad thing? If there's something I want to use, why not enjoy using it more?"

Because its not something you actually want to use that much. You've been conditioned to want to use it more than you objectively wanted to.

"The only issue I see is when people don't realize something has an addictive element to it"

Some things are inherently addictive; education and social support mechanisms are the only reasonable response.

Some things are designed to be addictive. Or that are inherently slightly addictive are honed until they are maximally addictive. A lot of social media, and free2play games are in this category, and this is evil. It's basically hacking people's brains.

There is nothing wrong with, say, making the user interface to Social media more intuitive, and more pleasant to use. There is nothing wrong with adding features that are genuinely useful.

But consider some of the tactics in play. If you don't login for a few days for example, you might get messages saying 'someone said something about you... login to find out what!' is that REALLY helpful... if i wanted to login i would have. If someone really said something so important that you had to reach beyond the platform to send me a an email just to let me know... why isn't what they said IN THE EMAIL ?? The answer because its NOT about being a feature to my benefit... its trying to lure me back; trying to trigger that craving.

And 'gamification' with achievements and scores or for example 'reputation' ... creates feedback loops in lots of people where they want to 'finish' or 'have the most' or something, and then they stop doing other activities to spend more time 'playing this game'. But this game really isn't that fun, and its been designed not to be as fun as possible while you play it, but to be as addictive as possible so you never stop playing it even after you realize its shit you still keep doing it... because that's what addiction IS. And it only exists precisely to be addictive so it can keep your eyeballs.

Re:So is everyone

[alvinrod]

The problem is that all of these platforms are businesses and the most successful will win out over their competition. This naturally leads businesses to stumble across this behavior even if they don't understand what they're actually doing and for those businesses which don't follow suit to lose out. There are a lot of games that are essentially Skinner boxes, but I don't think anyone sat down in the 90's and intentionally built them that way. Instead they probably tried out a lot of things and discovered what felt the most pleasurable to them and other developers saw the success and followed suit. Eventually some people more well-versed in the scientific literature noticed some similarities between the research and these games (or other domains) and pointed this out. People were already doing it without actively understanding what they were doing, but at this point I think there were some developers that realized that could build even better boxes instead of the sloppy approximations that had been created up until then. Now you've got shitty microtransaction games that cost perhaps a few tens of thousand of dollars to develop, but can pull in millions because they've been purpose built to addict people.

I'd be less worried about it if Twitter were trying to create a useful communication platform. That, however, appears to be something of an afterthought. We can certainly use these techniques for ill, but if you're using them to get people to exercise more, eat better, etc. I have a hard time finding fault in using such cognitive tricks. Hell, I've intentionally used some of them on myself in order to adjust my behavior. The only way I view it as dishonest or deceitful is to do it to someone else without explaining to them what is being done and how it works. If someone wants to keep buying game coins, collecting virtual points, amassing followers, etc. after the nature of what they're doing has been explained to them, I have to conclude that such is their own business.

Re:So is everyone

[vux984]

Exactly. Its 'light'. My karma is excellent, and has been forever. If its keeping score I don't know if I'm winning, and its not really rewarding me with points anywhere I can keep track of.

It has acheivements, and I have some, but i don't know how many there are, or how to get them, or compare them to someone else. And I don't care about them, and they might not even work anymore... :p

There's no leaderboards. There's no real competition. Compare it to stack or expert-sex-change or some of the various other forums out there; ive seen Q&A type threads where 90%+ of the thread is heated argument over who should get the "points", people asking for plus rep, people complaining that someone else just took their answer and added to it to whore points, they'll complain loudly and repeatedly that the original asker ghosted without assigning points, and then debate amongst themselves over which answer should get the points... etc... like what the fuck. those people have long since stopped showing up because they enjoy sharing answers to technical questions -- they're showing up because they want to 'win', they want the high score on some leaderboard, and the shiniest avatar / biggest purple gem glowing star / or whatever. I feel sorry for them, because they've been hacked by the site operators to spend hours of time providing content for free, and they aren't even really enjoying it for its own sake anymore... clearly... because they spend half their time raging about who got 'points'. They can't quit... or they'll drop off the scoreboard... and they've invested so much time into it. Etc... its demented.

"but it might satisfy some people's inner tinglings and make them want to seek out more 4s and 5s."

I guess so. But some people will get addicted to anything. Slashdot's system is extremely weak; and its clearly not designed or optimized to maximize site engagement, and so its pretty inoffensive. I've seen very few arguments about moderation... and whatever tiny niche here that is obsessed with getting +5s is pretty innocuous.

Don't respond to this article

[presidenteloco]

It's a trap!

Watson said it best

[TimMD909]

No shit, Sherlock.

My experience

[al0ha]

I had a young PhD friend that was getting backing for an app he was creating based on what he knew about people from his field of study, the brain and computer science. We had a long discussion about security and data, and quite frankly he didn't like what I had to say, even jokingly calling me a Luddite which stung a bit. This was several years ago, now all of a sudden the concerns I and others like Bruce Schneier were bringing up years ago are finally front page news.

George; I win. :P

That Explains A Couple Of things To Me

[crunchygranola]

I have never like gambling - I played a slot machine once for 15 minutes, and it was one of the most boring 15 minutes of my life.

I also don't like social media (unless /. counts). So apparently I don't have the brain chemistry these addiction-enablers are exploiting.