Too many bad takes built on reductive ideas about why people do what they do, especially online — less, I think, because they have useful explanatory power, and more because they allow people to skip entirely the layer containing desires they don’t endorse or fully understandhttps://twitter.com/primalpoly/status/1092064394920349697 …
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“This has hacked my brain’s reward system” is a path around thinking about what you’re doing *at all.* It is a science-y sounding replacement for “witches did it.”
11 replies 25 retweets 142 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @webdevMason
Mm, I don't know. For me the experience itself does feel (mildly) addictive. The urge to keep refreshing to see what's new, to click my notifications, to keep scrolling even if I'm not that engaged... I think it's fair to describe those as "hacking my brain's reward system"
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Replying to @juliagalef
IMO this can be consistent w the above; just that "hacking my brain's reward system" lacks explanatory power for anything interesting & people don't seem to notice. "I feel a daily compulsion to hug my boyfriend first thing when I get home. He's hacked my brain's reward system."
3 replies 0 retweets 18 likes -
Replying to @webdevMason
Julia Galef Retweeted Geoffrey Miller
Ah ok, then maybe my disagreement is just with
@primalpoly's model of what causes people's self-reported addiction to Twitter (that I thought you were endorsing), which doesn't fully match my experiencehttps://twitter.com/primalpoly/status/1092064394920349697 …Julia Galef added,
Geoffrey MillerVerified account @primalpolyYou're not 'addicted to Twitter'. You're not 'addicted to the dopamine hits from Twitter', whatever that's supposed to mean. You're addicted to the quirky, maddening characters you follow on Twitter, & the culture wars they're fighting, & the hilarity that ensues.2 replies 1 retweet 8 likes -
In my model, I would still feel a significant amount of the "must open Twitter, must refresh, must click notifications, must scroll" urge even if all of the content was drama-free. The dopamine hits come from some combination of novelty + approval (from the notifications)
1 reply 1 retweet 9 likes -
Isn't it analogous to pellets in BF Skinner's work on rats and related research re: unpredictable rewards? Rats weren't keen pulling levers for pellets when the required number of pulls was set, but they were nuts for lever-pulling when each pull had a random chance of a reward.
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Rats are happy to pull levers for food when they're hungry, whether the result is consistent or not. It just takes longer for them to accept that lever-pulls no longer deliver food in an intermittent schedule scenario vs. a continuous schedule scenario
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