Why your favorite apps are designed to addict you

I consider myself fairly self-aware and the most fascinating aspect of this for me has been observing my thought process as I went through this.

The way I laid it out above makes it seem rather simple. Like, I had a five second mental conversation with myself and was like "oh, ok, no consequences so I don't need to care anymore." However the reality was that it was something I needed to continually coach myself on until I internalized it over the course of a day or two.

The initial realization of this came pretty quickly, but actually breaking the hold it had on me took real repeated effort. I have newfound respect for those who are able to kick much more harmful addictions where the body's response is "pain and agony" vs. just "an annoying nagging feeling."

Now modify the lever to only give a food pellet sometimes. Sometimes there's nothing. This turns out to be much more effective at getting the rat to compulsively press the lever.

Now look at the internet, and services with frequent updates like Facebook, Twitter, or even HN. Sometimes you push the lever and get a reward, and sometimes you don't, effectively training the user to compulsively check.

As someone who does digital marketing for a living, I'm not only acutely aware of all the tricks they are using, but also the "shallow graphic layer on top of numbers" as you described it. Sometimes I can even visualize it kind of like Neo in the Matrix.

Initially there might be some stimulus for me, but it tends to wear off quickly and that has been my big issue with finding a good long-term game to sink my teeth into. It also is incidentally the reason why Casinos hold no appeal. I tried slots once and the moment my brain registered that I didn't need to wait for the wheel to spin, and I could hit the button as quickly as I wanted to generate the results, I thought "wow, this is like a game with absolutely shitty graphics I have to keep paying for that has no skill involved." And just like that I had zero interest in Casinos.

So I see all this going on in my head, but then there are things like Dungeon Robber[1] that for some reason keep attracting me back. And they literally give you the tables and such for the dice rolls as they are occurring. There is even less of a veneer of graphics on top of the numbers (although in this case I love D&D and I think it reminds me of my younger tabletop days).

That is what makes a lot of this stuff insidious for those that are less self-aware. I can recognize when I'm getting the dopamine hit, and it can be fun to experience, but for people who don't see it for what it is, I can only imagine how devastating that could be.

These days I find myself (with few exceptions), gravitating towards team-based games that are played in rounds (like Rocket League) that have a heavy emphasis on skill so I can pick it up, put it down, and not feel obligated to grind at all. Those seem to hit the sweet spot at the moment.

[1] http://blogofholding.com/dungeonrobber/index.php

Like, favorite, share, subscribe, follow, some type of hierarchy system.

That's how you get people addicted.

It never was a responsibility.