The Art of Addictive Software: The Digital Narcotic
summary
Flappy Bird becomes the anchor example: Flappy Bird — 50 million downloads, $50k ad revenue and was removed because users reported life disruption; design patterns named are variable reward scheduling, endless scroll and login rewards; proposed defenses are measurable: run addiction tests in beta, instrument and report screen time, consult psychologists, add mindful defaults and notification limits, use apps like Flora or Family Link to enforce limits, and cite ethics codes plus a cited statistic of 66% increase in suicide-related risk for teenage girls spending five hours versus one hour on social media.
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chapters (6)
- 0:00Start
- 2:03The Life and Death of Flappy Bird
- 4:18Why is software so addicting?
- 4:55The Dopamine Effect
- 6:49Reward prediction error
- 8:07Variable reward scheduling
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