Social Media Consumption
Post WW2 technology started to roll out to make available (affordable to masses) food that is tasty for humans, high in fat, sugar, and salt. People eat too much and there are negative effects. Now in the 21st century the technology has made available cognitive stimulation, e.g. videos on social media, that are psychologically ticking boxes that make them compelling viewing. People consume too much and there are negative effects. Companies' goals in both cases are to maximise consumption, not to maximise benefit for the consumer. Technology is good at optimising a given objective. It took longer to develop social media because it is more complex than the physical infrastructure that does farming, and discovering the taste preferences of humans. Cognitive stimulation "taste" is a lot more individualised and has more dimensions, but the algorithms have now solved it. Social media wastes people's time. They need to achieve their goals in the real world instead. Can we ha