Human beings are more complex than ants, but quite a bit of our behavior is, like the ants’, emergent from the interactions of lots of agents interacting on the basis of some really simple rules.
If you doubt this, consider that many tech companies invest enormous resources into essentially hacking our very simple dopamine reward mechanism. If you’re reading this on a smartphone, you probably have apps that alert you to updates—by making a tone, or vibrating, or displaying a little red circle with a number on it. It’s easy to take these for granted as mundane or neutral conveyors of information, but in reality they’re exquisitely designed, and constantly refined, to maximize your attention by exploiting the dopamine circuits in your brain.
In this way, these firms—facebook and twitter and instagram and their ilk—seek to maximize your usage of their apps, so they can sell more ads and make more money. Millions upon millions of us dance like monkeys for them, checking our phones when they buzz and then getting lost in their attention-traps.
2/3
https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/dopamine-smartphones-battle-time/
HeavenlyPossum /
npub1hk…ls2a5
2024-01-23 18:09:44
in reply to nevent1q…g8u5
Author Public Key
npub1hkcr3hrpsu5skqcnavew9s8gtegat76zyd4fd3zlrrc29h66f2sqtls2a5Published at
2024-01-23 18:09:44Event JSON
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"content": "Human beings are more complex than ants, but quite a bit of our behavior is, like the ants’, emergent from the interactions of lots of agents interacting on the basis of some really simple rules.\n\nIf you doubt this, consider that many tech companies invest enormous resources into essentially hacking our very simple dopamine reward mechanism. If you’re reading this on a smartphone, you probably have apps that alert you to updates—by making a tone, or vibrating, or displaying a little red circle with a number on it. It’s easy to take these for granted as mundane or neutral conveyors of information, but in reality they’re exquisitely designed, and constantly refined, to maximize your attention by exploiting the dopamine circuits in your brain. \n\nIn this way, these firms—facebook and twitter and instagram and their ilk—seek to maximize your usage of their apps, so they can sell more ads and make more money. Millions upon millions of us dance like monkeys for them, checking our phones when they buzz and then getting lost in their attention-traps.\n\n2/3\n\nhttps://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/dopamine-smartphones-battle-time/",
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