[john01dav]

Reddit is plenty addictive in my experience, and I've heard the same from other people ranging from high school teachers to tradespeople.

[whatever1]

Hackernews is also addictive. Fortnine is addictive. World of Warcraft is addictive. NFL is addictive.

Addiction does not strike to me as a unique trait of the social media.

The echo chamber bubble on the other hand, seems quite unique.

[baq]

HN doesn’t optimize for addictive. Fortnite and wow do. No opinion on NFL, but they probably do at least somewhat.

[hackyhacky]

> The echo chamber bubble on the other hand, seems quite unique.

More specifically: using "engagement" as the metric to optimize.

Users' use of content is measured: how long do they watch it? Do they leave a comment? Do they give a "like"? Based on that, the algorithm finds similar content that will elicit an even stronger response.

Every action you take on modern social media is giving information to your drug dealer so they can make the next hit even better. But not better for you; better for the social media, who make money from ads.

The continuously adaptive nature of the input stream as a basis for keeping users' eyeballs leashed to ads is what separates FB, Tiktok, Instagram, and Youtube from the more benign, but still addictive alternatives (HN, Fortnite, WoW, NFL, Reddit).

[XorNot]

Hacker News has plenty of its own echo chamber, no different to any other social environment.

[blackhaz]

I wonder if your KPI is no. of active users, page views, etc - then you are a priori building an addictive thing.

[carlosjobim]

> The echo chamber bubble on the other hand, seems quite unique.

At least you can now choose your bubble and even listen to your own echo. That beats having the government beam their psychosis straight into everybody's brain by TV, radio and newspapers.

That makes the whole society an "echo chamber" of whatever the rulers have on their current agenda. And not just on your devices, but all the people you meet in real life.

[eimrine]

> Hackernews is also addictive.

False. It is good, no more addictive than a spoon.

[tedmiston]

i think most users need more screen blocking control than they get out of the box on iOS. tools like one sec [1] have been invaluable for me.

[1]: https://one-sec.app/

[baq]

Yes, but most importantly I need to manage my children’s devices; it cannot be opt in and it mustn’t be possible to disable without me approving. Screen time is too easy for kids to work around as is. I also need in-app content type filtering (eg. no shorts, no music videos on music streaming apps) and literally no one is providing such options, not to mention it should be managed in screen time, too. Parental controls are a complete shit show in iOS and the app ecosystem.