The Acceleration of Addictiveness

If the early internet was serving beer and wine that brought people together, today’s internet is dealing crack and fentanyl that tears people apart. The consumer isn’t winning when they are addicted to a product that makes them unhappy, and when they are spending hours each day using products they would pay money to make disappear.

as is becoming increasingly clear to those who have attempted these types of minor corrections, willpower, tips, and vague resolutions are not sufficient by themselves to tame the ability of new technologies to invade your cognitive landscape—the addictiveness of their design and the strength of the cultural pressures supporting them are too strong

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This industry spent the last 20 years proving that we know how to assault the senses to hijack attention, install addiction, etc. Software built in this style will continue because there’s a proven market for it… but I don’t think it’ll define the next 20 years

In 2010, Paul Graham published an essay entitled “The Acceleration of Addictiveness.” In it, he proposed that as technological progress continued its inexorable march forward, it would cause product improvements in every category. For the majority of products, that means they become more addictive. Graham argues, “The world is more addictive than i... See more