[dvt]

Well, I guess we have different a different understanding of addiction. Building a great habit-forming app (what Hooked is about) is slightly different than selling crack-cocaine.

I would argue one is morally acceptable (building the app) and the other isn't (selling crack-cocaine).

[Veen]

When thousands of very intelligent and highly motivated people dedicate their lives to creating applications that exploit human cognitive and social systems for advertising money, it's something to be concerned about.

Attention is a zero sum resource, and humans can be manipulated into spending their time in ways that are not in their best interest.

Edit: Tristan Harris has written interestingly on this topic:

http://www.tristanharris.com/2016/05/how-technology-hijacks-...

[_tulpa]

I would argue that the app is morally ambiguous unless you know what habits it teaches the user.

What if it teaches users the habit of selling crack cocaine? (stupid example, but you get the point)

[dvt]

Actually you're right. I think that's a fair point. It probably needs to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.

In that vein of thought, maybe OP had a point. Snapchat/Instagram seems to feed our narcissistic egos more than anything, so maybe it's not as morally inert as I had thought.

[adjkant]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdynfVNbJ5E

PS: Despite being recorded "with a potato", to borrow the first comment, very relevant to basically all social media and moral good. And Bo Burnham is an amazing watch generally anyways, PSA. All of his specials are gold.

[bduerst]

What do you think the pay-to-win mobile apps qualify as? Specifically, the games engineered as Skinner boxes?