SB2: How Social Media is Built to be Addictive

"the ATTENTION economy"

I think a huge part of why social media has been taking over our lives is because of how it's been created and the features specifically built into them in order for use to be more inclined to use it without realising how much time we actually spend using it.

Sean Parker, founding President of Facebook mentioned how, "It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains"

• It's FREE - Most if now social media sites are free, however it's free because the people using are not the customer's, but rather advertisers who feed their products and adverts into the audience's feed. It's the audiences' ATTENTION BEING SOLD.
• SLOT MACHINE TRICKS - Features such as "pull to refresh" or infinite scrolling are ways in which apps incline you to stay longer without realising. "Intermittent Reinforcements" The uncertainty and unpredictability or what post is coming up next is what makes it addicting.
• DOPAMINE - Activities that give us a sense of achievement or exciting on social media indicates to our brain that it's worth doing again, releasing  dopamine. Adding reinforcing features such as "Like" button and notifications will further encourage this. It also feed into our insecurities or give us reinforcement in our 'virtual self'. 

https://www.sciencefocus.com/future-technology/trapped-the-secret-ways-social-media-is-built-to-be-addictive-and-what-you-can-do-to-fight-back/

This is similar to what I've researched before, however I thought it was good to go over them again to ensure myself which info to take in so i don't overload myself or go too much on a tangent. These info are still relevant to what I'm tackling and will be helpful in informing me for the design that I will be making.