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A low-resolution addiction
Most addictions work by erasing the sense of time. Gamblers crave the zone where everything else disappears, and people who are intoxicated aren't thinking about the fact that they shouldn't be. Social media doesn't feel really good, and people report afterward that the last 30 or 45 minutes felt wasted, aware of it even while they were scrolling.
One theory holds that this is why it hooks so well. It is low resolution enough that it doesn't take over the whole mind, so the brain's circuits can attach to it while a person still monitors themselves. Two tracks run at once, which means no missed final exam and no forgotten school pickup. A person can still sort of tend to the kids, sort of be in a conversation, sort of be on the Zoom, and a life doesn't totally fall apart.
That mildness may be part of the problem, and brains aren't designed to split between two activities for terribly long. The theory is untested, and it is one that laboratories have yet to look at.
What is the machine zone in gambling?
Anthropologist Natasha Dow Schull spent years studying Las Vegas gamblers and described her findings in her 2012 book Addiction by Design. Players told her they sought a state they called the zone, in which time, money, and even their own bodies faded from awareness. Machine designers built features around keeping players in that state. The book is based on fieldwork among players, designers, and treatment counselors.
Why does splitting attention wear the brain down?
Switching between tasks carries a measurable cost. In a 2001 study, psychologists Joshua Rubinstein, David Meyer, and Jeffrey Evans found that people lost time every time they switched between tasks, and the loss grew as the tasks became more complex. The brain has to drop one set of rules and load another. The study appeared in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
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