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Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

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11–20 of 222 posts

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

#11
HN is so loved by many people in the field of technology. HN has its own "feel" to enjoy. The best time and place to enjoy HN news is like the place where you are writing this.

Congratulations for those of you who have enjoyed your presence there.

Great! Richard Daris https://www.RichardDaris.com

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

#13
post #4

My understanding is it’s the little thrill your brain gets from the possibility of finding something super interesting. That’s the addicting piece. The gambling piece of it. I read (or more likely heard on a podcast) about an experiment with mice and a food dispensing button. In one case, the button reliably dispensed food every time it was pressed. In the other case, sometimes the button wouldn’t work. The mice with…

This is a super interesting take. Are there studies / clinical definitions of this or something similar?

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

#16
Almost all news and social media site structure is derived from research using the Skinner box[1, scroll down to A Man, a Plan, and a Rat in a Box]. Researching operant conditioning, they found that introducing randomness to some sort of dopamine release would cause habitual behavior of the action that caused dopamine release. This reaction to novelty was then successfully transferred to humans. This is most obvious on Reddit IMO, with "gems" interspersed between vapid, uninteresting posts.

I'm actually making an alternative to Facebook that shows posts chronologically in the feed instead of using machine learning algorithms to make them addictive. I also plan to not include a share button on posts. I think these two changes would make it far less addictive and better for users.

[1] https://www.skyword.com/contentstandard/conditioned-social-m...

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

#19

As somebody who likes nature, please don't make fire on a cliff. It leads to the rock cracking and degrading faster. The next one coming along wants to enjoy the place as much as you do.

Thanks for the tip, honestly didn't know that. It's actually a sandstone cliff, my fire is about 15m from the edge (nearer my tent than the drop) and I'm using my own firepit. It's generally pretty hard to light fires (legally) in this part of the world without some serious precautions!

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

#20
post #4

My understanding is it’s the little thrill your brain gets from the possibility of finding something super interesting. That’s the addicting piece. The gambling piece of it. I read (or more likely heard on a podcast) about an experiment with mice and a food dispensing button. In one case, the button reliably dispensed food every time it was pressed. In the other case, sometimes the button wouldn’t work. The mice with…

Although I think I get the underlying feeling you're trying to define, I'm not sure about the analogy of the experiment on mice. That feels more like it's about being in the presence of an unreliable food source, where it makes sense to stock up while food is available to get you through the lean times. There's obviously an overcompensation there, but evolutionarily-derived mechanisms aren't particularly precise. The food source in this experiment is "reliably unreliable", which probably doesn't mimic real-life food sources very well.
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