I had been thinking of social media as “digital nicotine”, but the metaphor of MMORPG/casino fills in a large gap in that picture.
Nicotine is a natural substance that presses certain buttons in our brains that make us crave more of it. Cigarette companies’ whole deal is to figure out the optimal delivery platform (form, size, flavor, etc.) and make money off our brains’ reaction.
But MMORPGs and casinos, they’re designed by us to be like little theme parks for our brains. Instead of pressing buttons like “pleasure” or “chill”, they press buttons like “family”, “status”, etc. Coupled with instant feedback loops that can optimize the input for each unique user in real-time, it seems to me that social media is on a whole different level than mere nicotine.
I had been thinking of social media as “digital nicotine”, but the metaphor of MMORPG/casino fills in a large gap in that picture.
Nicotine is a natural substance that presses certain buttons in our brains that make us crave more of it. Cigarette companies’ whole deal is to figure out the optimal delivery platform (form, size, flavor, etc.) and make money off our brains’ reaction.
But MMORPGs and casinos, they’re designed by us to be like little theme parks for our brains. Instead of pressing buttons like “pleasure” or “chill”, they press buttons like “family”, “status”, etc. Coupled with instant feedback loops that can optimize the input for each unique user in real-time, it seems to me that social media is on a whole different level than mere nicotine.