Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

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 …

“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.”

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"

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."

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 …

My read: in any instance where you can say "my brain's reward system has been hacked," you are making choices to meet some need or desire (effectively or ineffectively). People may point to the neurochemical layer when they're uncomfortable w/ the need or ashamed of their choices

I wouldn't say my brain's incessant "check twitter? now??" pings are a choice on my part. I mean, it is a choice whether I indulge them. But I think saying Twitter "hacked my reward system" is just a way to say it's designed to make those pings more frequent & harder to resist.