Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial • Hacker News Board

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#31

Post by sidibe » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:32 AM UTC

the_snooze wrote: post #21

mmaunder wrote: post #5

We all know they're addictive, they're designed to be addictive, and they're very, very harmful, to both adults and children. The individuals who are profiting from the harm are clearly identifiable. And that harm directly targets children. That this is allowed to continue is a symptom of a sick society.

Social media feeds are designed to be slot machines. Each scroll is a pull. You may or may not get something you actually want. You can't predict what's coming up next, so you just keep mindlessly scrolling.

It's not just the scrolling, the posting side too. They all randomly boost one of your posts so suddenly tons of feedback (especially noticable when I tried threads) and then you try to get that back again. The uncertainty keeps you at it

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#32

Post by twoodfin » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:32 AM UTC

bbrks wrote: post #19

twoodfin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense do you mean Instagram is “addictive” to a neurotypical adult?

Reels are non-stop dopamine hits, just like TikTok. It's incredibly addictive to scroll through. That is by far the worst part of Instagram for anybody. Everything else outside of reels is the usual social media fake life facade, and everything amplified to the max for engagement to get it pushed to feeds via "the algorithm" (note: Interactions don't need to be positive to promote it to feeds)

Some quick Googling tells me Instagram has something like 3B users who spend an average of around 30 minutes a day in the app.

Rewind 30 years or so, how long did the typical New York Times subscriber spend with their paper every day?

Was the Times addictive?

And I won’t even get started on network television for half a century.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#33

Post by buttersicle » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:33 AM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #5

We all know they're addictive, they're designed to be addictive, and they're very, very harmful, to both adults and children. The individuals who are profiting from the harm are clearly identifiable. And that harm directly targets children. That this is allowed to continue is a symptom of a sick society.

Sure, but this is also how these companies make money. You need to actually pass a law that prohibits this before you fine the companies that do it.

Letting juries rob them just because the jury doesn't like it is nothing more than fascism.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#34

Post by maxaw » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:33 AM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #10

mmaunder wrote: post #5

We all know they're addictive, they're designed to be addictive, and they're very, very harmful, to both adults and children. The individuals who are profiting from the harm are clearly identifiable. And that harm directly targets children. That this is allowed to continue is a symptom of a sick society.

In what sense do you mean Instagram is “addictive” to a neurotypical adult?

I don’t know a single person who after exposure to short form video has not had to exert special effort to regulate their consumption.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#35

Post by megaman821 » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:35 AM UTC

maxaw wrote: post #28

superkuh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What these corporations were trying to do is bad and vaguely feasible to a degree. I think it's bad enough regulation could apply. But there is an additional consideration that's really important in how we as a society deal with this. Screens are not drugs. They are not somehow uniquely and magically addictive (like drugs actually are). The multi-media is not the problem and not the device to be regulated. The corpor…

Screens on their own aren’t “uniquely and magically addictive”, but infinitely scrollable short form video delivered through that screen is, because a few companies spent billions on the smartest minds in the world to make it so.

So you would support banning any form of entertainment that people spend more time on than TikTok since it would be above the threshold of addiction?

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#36

Post by ramijames » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:36 AM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #5

We all know they're addictive, they're designed to be addictive, and they're very, very harmful, to both adults and children. The individuals who are profiting from the harm are clearly identifiable. And that harm directly targets children. That this is allowed to continue is a symptom of a sick society.

It's such a breath of relief to finally hear people talking about this clearly and loudly. May it continue and may this bad behaviour have repercussions. Enough.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#37

Post by amazingamazing » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:36 AM UTC

This site is also guilty. Why can’t you hide your karma from the top and read all comments without the unreadable colors they give downvoted comments? Forcing you to play stupid games. Unsurprising since this site is from the same Silicon Valley.

People will give excuses for this. Guess what, meta and Google have their own too.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#38

Post by wheelerwj » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:37 AM UTC

buttersicle wrote: post #33

mmaunder wrote: post #5

We all know they're addictive, they're designed to be addictive, and they're very, very harmful, to both adults and children. The individuals who are profiting from the harm are clearly identifiable. And that harm directly targets children. That this is allowed to continue is a symptom of a sick society.

Sure, but this is also how these companies make money. You need to actually pass a law that prohibits this before you fine the companies that do it. Letting juries rob them just because the jury doesn't like it is nothing more than fascism.

Theres already laws that protect kids. Thats why they just lost in court.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#39

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:37 AM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #5

We all know they're addictive, they're designed to be addictive, and they're very, very harmful, to both adults and children. The individuals who are profiting from the harm are clearly identifiable. And that harm directly targets children. That this is allowed to continue is a symptom of a sick society.

I absolutely do not know they're addictive.

I've lived through this entire story before in the video game wars. People said exactly the same things with exactly the same urgency about Mortal Kombat - what kind of sick society do we live in, where greedy corporations sell you the experience of shooting people and ripping their heads off? Perhaps we have to let adults buy these "murder simulators", but only a disturbed, evil person could possibly argue for letting kids do it.

If that sounds crazy to you, the moral panic over social media will sound just as crazy in a decade or two.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#40

Post by wheelerwj » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:37 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #27

conk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show me one ice cream parlor that has license psychologists on the payroll for “persuasive design” or GTFO with your bad faith argument.

Any ice cream company that has ever hired a major ad agency.

Not even close and you know it.