See China, opium.

The core problem is:

1) We've gotten very good at making things hyper-addictive.

2) Market forces reward clicks. Without regulation, things WILL be hyper-addictive.

3) Private right-of-action is a really good way to implement regulatory frameworks; it tends to be far more efficient than DoJ or similar for these sorts of things.

Personally, I'm uninterested into being tricked into getting addicted to something. I would welcome regulation which would change those market dynamics. The older I get, the more I'd like a humane regulatory system.

Where gamification is in 2022, society will collapse if we don't get this under control. We've polarized our whole civic discourse for ad clicks.

What's the difference between addictive and fun?

A lot of fun things aren't addictive. For example, I've done a lot of sports. I enjoy them. I don't suffer withdrawal if I stop doing them, and I don't feel a compulsion to start doing them. Indeed, I need to motivate myself to do them.

A lot of addictive things aren't fun. A gambler might be miserable but CAN'T stop. Likewise, there were a lot of time-wasting games in the 2010s which no one enjoyed playing, but which were very hard to stop.

A popular model was:

- Click on things to gather points / resources / etc. which you can trade in to be able to do more.

- You have a constant feeling of progress. There is often exponential growth of some kind of points / diamonds / etc. as you can trade them in for things which produce more.

- There is real-world time involved. For example, plants might grow in 8 hours, and whither in 24. You need to log in periodically or you lose them. There might be weekly rewards, which are one-shot (if you don't get one some week, you lose it forever).

- There is an element of randomness on rewards (treasure boxes) and determinism on punishments (if you've failed to log in one week, you lose that reward forever).

This was well-studied. Similar techniques are used by shopping vendors to get people to buy, employers to get people to work, etc. We've gotten really good at making things addictive.

Right now, there's a similar thing happening with hate and polarization. People have a need to follow stories which often have no effect on their lives (in some cases, are statistical anomalies), but which serve to scare. We're wired to follow fear. That's a lot more effective than the 2010 model, and makes people hate each other.

A lot of drugs create a dependence too, without being fun.

something addictive is something that you can't stop even if you want to. There are lots of reasons why someone would want to stop doing something that is fun, but if it is addictive they can't.

You know how as a parent if you do something like read a book, your kid will imitate you?

Imagine majority of parents glued to a smartphone and their kid wants to imitate them. The parent allows it because they are addicted to the device and don't know how to cope / moderate it.

Kids are a reflection of their parents, if we ought to solve a problem, it should also be for internet addiction of the previous generation.

Every parent should simply read books at home to prevent dark patterns from hijacking the dopamine systems of their children?

That doesn't sound effective.

Exactly, why don't they take responsibility for making an addictive product? Why do they need to be sued to recognise their negative impact on other people?

Because money

When have parents ever taken responsibility for their own crappy parenting?

You must not have children

Because suing them into compliance is easier than forcing them into creating standards that protect children. These are companies that spend many millions of dollars a year researching how to get kids hooked on their products.