Social media and other apps glue people to the screens using features derived from video slot machines in casinos, writes Michaeleen Doucleff at NPR.org.
“People struggling with gambling addiction often cite video slots as their game of choice, studies have found. Some people gamble on these machines for extraordinary periods of time, [NY anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll] found in her ethnographic fieldwork. They can play for 24 hours, even 48 hours straight. Some people even told Schüll that they wear adult diapers to the casino so they don’t have to stop gambling to use the restroom.”
Three of the features are solitude; bottomlessness, or the never-ending feed; speed — new content keeps coming at you fast; and teasing, where the feed never gives you quite what you’re looking for, but it comes close.