I don't like this article or this author's conclusions. They answer the question "is internet content too engaging?" with "no, and besides, won't you think of the free market?"
This article is unfortunate evidence that powerful groups who are critical of social media tend to be against the concept of free will itself (hello, Amy Coney Barrett), while powerful people who run social media are against the concept of reducing harm on their platforms at all.
A report by the American Psychological Association states that “using social media is not inherently beneficial or harmful to young people.”
Uh huh.
Meta's internal research that prompted concern about the effect of Instagram on teenage girls actually found that most users reported Instagram either had no impact or made things better.
ACCORDING TO FUCKING FACEBOOK.
...proponents of “addictive design” theories misunderstand the impact that regulation and liability will have on media competition. In a world where content is abundant and attention is scarce, platforms that manage to reach a critical mass of users compete not just on size but also on curation quality...
TikTok provides a good example. TikTok didn't overtake established platforms like YouTube by having more users or more content; it succeeded by creating a better algorithm that more effectively curated content to individual preferences.
Again, doubt. Sure, the free market provided a more addictive alternative to an already addictive product. It resembles a slot machine more than the previous version.
I have no idea how the author thinks this is a slam dunk in their favor, when it's clearly the opposite.