If a TV program ends a series on an unnecessary cliffhanger, should there be legal consequences? How about if a smartphone game has timed events to encourage the player to come back regularly? While I agree that these things aren’t typically beneficial, I don’t think legislation is always the answer. There’s a huge gray area around the question of whether a feature is beneficial or just designed to increase compulsive consumption. Trying to legislate something so ambiguous is bound to produce bad results.
Your comment is a little nonsensical. Again, I think your core issue is confusion over what addiction is and is not. Looking forward to the next TV episode is not addiction either.
Don’t you care about spreading misinformation online?
I think your core issue is confusion over what addiction is and is not.
That’s right. Because if your definition of addiction is broad enough to include compulsive use of social media, there’s a lot of scope for confusion. That is a case of media companies using psychological tricks to get their users/viewers coming back for more, which is not fundamentally different from a lot of TV programming techniques. There are variations of degree or complexity, but it’s the same game, and one which we’ve routinely accepted for years.
Don’t you care about spreading misinformation online?
If a TV program ends a series on an unnecessary cliffhanger, should there be legal consequences? How about if a smartphone game has timed events to encourage the player to come back regularly? While I agree that these things aren’t typically beneficial, I don’t think legislation is always the answer. There’s a huge gray area around the question of whether a feature is beneficial or just designed to increase compulsive consumption. Trying to legislate something so ambiguous is bound to produce bad results.
Your comment is a little nonsensical. Again, I think your core issue is confusion over what addiction is and is not. Looking forward to the next TV episode is not addiction either.
Don’t you care about spreading misinformation online?
That’s right. Because if your definition of addiction is broad enough to include compulsive use of social media, there’s a lot of scope for confusion. That is a case of media companies using psychological tricks to get their users/viewers coming back for more, which is not fundamentally different from a lot of TV programming techniques. There are variations of degree or complexity, but it’s the same game, and one which we’ve routinely accepted for years.
How is that relevant?
We disagree on whether (or where) there is a line between compelling engagement and engineered compulsion/addiction. If you or anyone else is interested in authoritative insights on this, here’s a good starting point: https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/addictive-behaviours-gaming-disorder