Addiction by design
by Natasha Dow Schüll · first published 2012
79% recommend21% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Research-based look at how slot machines are engineered to keep players in a trance, drawing on addicts, casinos and designers; useful for anyone building apps or studying how tech can exploit psychology.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…be to foster user awareness with threshold mechanisms: "You spent more than [threshold]$ today. We won't accept any more purchases until tomorrow." If you're interested, I highly recommend N. Schüll's Addiction by Design.
on “Engineers of addiction” ↗There's a really good book about the design of the slot machines, called Addiction by Design. It talks about the different UI and design elements that go into keeping the gambler engaged and why they keep spending more money. It's a really amazing and enlightening book to read if you're interested…
I recently read an excellent book about this subject exactly -- Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas, by Natasha Dow Schüll. It has research from every angle -- former addicts, the casinos, current addicts, game programmers, game manufacturers, anyone who has a hand in…
on “How slot machines are designed to be addictive” ↗Addiction by Design by Natasha Dow Schüll is an excellent book about the video slots industry in the US, its behavioral engineering principles, and the effects it has on the lives of the people it hooks into pointless and…
on “Is Facebook a Structural Threat to Free Society?” ↗The Classic "HOWTO" for software: Hooked by Nir Eyal (2009) https://amzn.com/dp/B00LMGLXTS A New "History": Irresistible by Adam Alter (2017) https://amzn.com/dp/1594206643/ Your Recommendation: Addiction by Design by Natasha Dow Schüll (2014) https://amzn.com/dp/0691160880
on “Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook” ↗"Addiction By Design" by Natasha Dow Schull is a really great book about the slot machine industry. The author draws a distinction between two types of gambling addiction. One kind of addicted gambler is what you would typically…
on “Casino-like apps have drained people of millions” ↗…(perceived, at least). People don't like that feeling, even when they like the content they are being shown. Machines can be built to exploit odd elements of human psychology. I strongly recommend the book Addiction by Design.
on “Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment” ↗…video as much as the numb hypnotic state from consuming that much content." This to me matches up most with gambling addiction. There is a great book on the subject that I recommend to the Author called "Addiction by Design" by Natasha Schull. The main thrust of her argument is that machine gambling addicts don't care about winning at all but have found gambling machines (slots, video poker mostly) as a reliable way to activate…
on “YouTube Addiction” ↗If you found this article interesting, check out the book Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas, by Natasha Dow Schüll. It's an incredibly interesting book about building addictive gameplay, the industry that does it, and the people that use it.
on “Calling the Oregon Lottery's Bluff After Poker Machine Dealt a Strange Hand” ↗…used slot machines have a high frequency of small rewards. The end result is the same – the casinos get all your money – but players' motivation has never been higher. You can read more in N. Schüll's Addiction by Design. My point is that daily news most likely adopted the same reward schedule. The old model – fixed interval, fixed ratio – is a poor motivator.
on “What should a modern scientific infrastructure look like?” ↗Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas [1] [1] https://www.amazon.com/Addiction-Design-Machine-Gambling-Veg... edit: also vouching for not designing addictive products
on “Ask HN: Designing addictive products?” ↗…accomplish what we want, but I do not trust any company dependent on ad-revenue (or backed by Wall Street in general) to help with that. I'd also recommend checking out The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu and Addiction by Design by Natasha Schull for background on the history of the commodification of attention and of the
on “Manipulating Human Psychology To Turn Users Into Addicts” ↗I think you've hit the nail on the head. Having recently finished reading Natash Dow Schüll's excellent _Addiction By Design_ it's startling to read this take on where ethical responsibility lies; it's startlingly similar to the attitudes of the machine gambling industry (and the alcohol industry for that matter) customers…
on “Former Fortnite UX lead digs into ethical game design” ↗…Vegas, where they try to draw out the "loop" long enough so that people keep playing as long as possible without ever walking away. Here's a quote about one of the best academic books on the subject, Addiction By Design: Drawing on fifteen years of field research in Las Vegas, anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll shows how the mechanical rhythm of electronic gambling pulls players into a trancelike state they call…
on “Gamedevs not baking in monetization are “fucking idiots”, says Unity CEO” ↗A related academic work is “Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas” by Natasha Schull.
on “Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends” ↗