What's new about phones is NOT that things are manipulated so that we want more of it. "News" have been around for centuries and they've always been manipulated to give most people outrageous stuff to consume.
What's new about phones is that A) they are an effectively infinite source of stuff and B) it takes 2 seconds to get them from our pocket.
So you're blaming addiction on optimization by evil services, but in reality the problem are the phones themselves: they make it too easy to "get more".
What's new about phones is NOT that things are manipulated so that we want more of it. "News" have been around for centuries and they've always been manipulated to give most people outrageous stuff to consume.
What's new about phones is that A) they are an effectively infinite source of stuff and B) it takes 2 seconds to get them from our pocket.
So you're blaming addiction on optimization by evil services, but in reality the problem are the phones themselves: they make it too easy to "get more".