Doing Good in the Addiction Economy
kajsotala.fi
Doing Good in the Addiction Economy
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: Doing Good in the Addiction Economy
#2> What is wrong with this? If people are voluntarily engaging in these activities, is that not a good thing? Well, if people genuinely enjoy those activities, then maybe so. And sometimes that is what happens. But often, my experience at least is quite different...
That's an important point which is often lost on proponents of "revealed preferences". It's explored in more detail in Yvain's essay on the want/like distinction: http://lesswrong.com/lw/1lb/are_wireheads_happy/. Here's a quote:
> A University of Michigan study analyzed the brains of rats eating a favorite food. They found separate circuits for "wanting" and "liking", and were able to knock out either circuit without affecting the other... When they knocked out the "liking" system, the rats would eat exactly as much of the food without making any of the satisifed lip-licking expression, and areas of the brain thought to be correlated with pleasure wouldn't show up in the MRI. Knock out "wanting", and the rats seem to enjoy the food as much when they get it but not be especially motivated to seek it out.
Re: Doing Good in the Addiction Economy
#3I was confounded and disturbed when I started seeing mobile games advertising "addictive" as a positive trait. Most addictive game ever? Why on Earth would I want to play that? But somehow it's become a badge of honor for games, with people not even realizing they're being told that they're being manipulated.
Of course this is not at all limited to games -- the article speaks to many industries, most of which are more insidious about this -- but it's the one that comes to mind most readily, because it illustrates an appalling lack of consumer awareness.
Re: Doing Good in the Addiction Economy
#4I was confounded and disturbed when I started seeing mobile games advertising "addictive" as a positive trait. Most addictive game ever? Why on Earth would I want to play that? But somehow it's become a badge of honor for games, with people not even realizing they're being told that they're being manipulated. Of course this is not at all limited to games -- the article speaks to many industries, most of which are mor…
i think you miss the point of advertising something as addictive. it can have a positive spin. addiction can be understood as something so enjoyable you would want to continue to do it as a regular activity. if that thing isn't bad for you, then it's a good thing that it's addictive.
if i told you excercise was addictive as a selling point, would you say that people shouldn't exercise because it is addictive? i think it's clear that addictive activities aren't necessarily bad just cause they are addictive.
people should focus on the positive impact an activity has. if it's strongly positive, then addiction to it isn't bad at all.
Re: Doing Good in the Addiction Economy
#5Obligatory link to an essay I posted on HN a few years ago and received lots of commentary from the community. This is a very serious problem. I've yet to see much headway being made.
http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/02/technology-is...
Re: Doing Good in the Addiction Economy
#6I was confounded and disturbed when I started seeing mobile games advertising "addictive" as a positive trait. Most addictive game ever? Why on Earth would I want to play that? But somehow it's become a badge of honor for games, with people not even realizing they're being told that they're being manipulated. Of course this is not at all limited to games -- the article speaks to many industries, most of which are mor…
> I was confounded and disturbed when I started seeing mobile games advertising "addictive" as a positive trait
I wouldn't worry too much about that. Board games have been advertised that way for years. It might just show that folks who worked in advertising on board games have moved or the new folks are reading the old folks copy.
Re: Doing Good in the Addiction Economy
#7>the same process also makes it possible to create drugs, games, and services that are ever more addictive than before.
Not necessarily. There very well may be a limit to the propensity of the brain toward addiction, unless we delve into deep sci-fi territory of complete reward structure take over. Opiates have passed their 200th birthday and we certainly can't conclusively say that we have found anything more addictive than heroin (150 years old).
Re: Doing Good in the Addiction Economy
#8>the same process also makes it possible to create drugs, games, and services that are ever more addictive than before. Not necessarily. There very well may be a limit to the propensity of the brain toward addiction, unless we delve into deep sci-fi territory of complete reward structure take over. Opiates have passed their 200th birthday and we certainly can't conclusively say that we have found anything more addict…
But could we just "take" heroin and alter it to create a bit different substance with different properties? If so, could one property be "addictiveness" and could it exceed that of heroin?
Re: Doing Good in the Addiction Economy
#9> What is wrong with this? If people are voluntarily engaging in these activities, is that not a good thing? Well, if people genuinely enjoy those activities, then maybe so. And sometimes that is what happens. But often, my experience at least is quite different... That's an important point which is often lost on proponents of "revealed preferences". It's explored in more detail in Yvain's essay on the want/like dist…
I feel exactly this way about reddit and programming, respectively. Guess which I've been doing more often...
Re: Doing Good in the Addiction Economy
#10Obligatory link to an essay I posted on HN a few years ago and received lots of commentary from the community. This is a very serious problem. I've yet to see much headway being made. http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/02/technology-is...
That was a very good read. Kind of scary to think about. I waste a lot of time online, so I'm not immune, but I don't play addictive games anymore. I can get addicted to them. If I start playing a game I might end up playing it nonstop for a week. But I don't try new games. It doesn't seem fun. Just like I wouldn't start using addictive drugs.
The same is true of websites. If I just stop going to those websites I'm addicted to for a week, it breaks the addiction and I won't go back. I have like 20 messages on reddit that I never get around to replying to, and bunch of Facebook posts that feel like more work to read than it's worth. My RSS feed overfilled and I haven't checked my email in months.
The point is, unlike drugs, games don't stay fun forever. You get bored and quit. And if you quit you lose the temptation to go back to them.