I like how this article doesn't mention dopamine. On the other hand, I think that the key challenge is that brain activity that was well suited for contexts that prevailed for a long time long ago are less well adapted for things available today.
From Nir Eyal, author of "Hooked:"
Here, companies leverage two pulleys of human behavior – motivation and ability. To increase the odds of a user taking the intended action, the behavior designer makes the action as easy as possible, while simultaneously boosting the user’s motivation.
[...]
Bizarrely, we perceive this trance-like state as fun. This is because our brains are wired to search endlessly for the next reward, never satisfied. Recent neuroscience has revealed that our dopamine system works not to provide us with rewards for our efforts, but to keep us searching by inducing a semi-stressful response we call desire.
yeah designing anti-dopaminergic (maybe serotonergic?) tech is a class of solutions I'm especially excited about. Like browser extensions that cut out the little dopamine-triggering UI elements that designers keep adding in.
From Nir Eyal, author of "Hooked:"
Here, companies leverage two pulleys of human behavior – motivation and ability. To increase the odds of a user taking the intended action, the behavior designer makes the action as easy as possible, while simultaneously boosting the user’s motivation.
[...]
Bizarrely, we perceive this trance-like state as fun. This is because our brains are wired to search endlessly for the next reward, never satisfied. Recent neuroscience has revealed that our dopamine system works not to provide us with rewards for our efforts, but to keep us searching by inducing a semi-stressful response we call desire.
https://www.nirandfar.com/how-to-manufacture-desire/