I think these triggers are an important insight into human behavior, not just because of the profit that can be had by activating them, but because of the great potential for abuse/utility. On one hand, we see potentially dangerous abuse of these triggers, such setting people up to waste time on Farmville style apps or making repetitive comments on Facebook. On the other hand, there is a potential to train ourselves so that our triggers lead us to more productive situations. Instead of reading a newsfeed generated by people we could ultimately care less about, what if our go-to for boredom is performing some 30 second crowd-sourced task? Or maybe we look at something relevantly educational, like an elegant programming trick of the day.
For the most part, when I get an internal trigger like boredom or anxiety or exhaustion, I go to something non-productive, like /r/wtf. But recently I've been replacing /r/wtf with HN, and while most of the browsing is still mindless, it's a lot more relevant to my career path and often leads me to other useful things like 750words.com
Right now, the most successful companies that make use of triggers are mostly parasitic to our everyday lives, but I'm wondering if that can't change to become something that we benefit from.