Digital Hedonism
It has gotten pretty bad. Even when I try to stay aware and moderate myself, I remain subconsciously attracted to my phone. The thing is, even if you know how the attention economy functions, you can’t escape it.
The goal of this post is to look into why the internet is so powerful and how you could use it more “intentionally”. To do so, I will be taking a look into “dark patterns” and “psychology”.
Dark Patterns
Dark patterns are specific design choices aimed to target and exploit human psychology.
- Autoscroll: TikTok, IG Reels, and YouTube Reels. Autoscroll prevents the user from disengaging with the platform.
- Gamification: Incentives drive behavior like continued usage of the platform even if it isn’t helpful.
- Social Gratification: Dopamine triggers through likes and shares. Is a video even good without likes?
Psychological Levers
Most dark patterns prey on the same thing: “short-term dopamine rewards without agency”. Within those dopamine patterns, social media apps seems to have taken advantage of both “Pavlovian” and “Skinnerian” conditioning.
TikTok, for example, uses Pavlovian-based conditioning to instill the drive to engage with content and crave more content. It then uses Skinnerian-based conditioning once you have begun engaging with the platform—think of each swipe as a positive reward.
What is dangerous here is when the two forms of conditioning synergize and utilize each other to trap the user further. It becomes a feedback loop exploiting cognitive biases for continuing user engagement.
Citations
Anderson, E.L., Steen, E., & Stavropoulos, V. (2017). Internet use and Problematic Internet Use: a systematic review of longitudinal research trends in adolescence and emergent adulthood. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 22, 430-454.
Gray, C.M., Kou, Y., Battles, B., Hoggatt, J., & Toombs, A. (2018). The Dark (Patterns) Side of UX Design. Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
Nguyen, C.T. (2018). ECHO CHAMBERS AND EPISTEMIC BUBBLES. Episteme, 17, 141-161.
Jones, F., & Skinner, B.F. (2016). The Behavior of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis.
Rescorla, R., & Wagner, A.R. (1972). A theory of Pavlovian conditioning: Variations in the effectiveness of reinforcement and nonreinforcement.