An extreme view of this in economics would be Gary Becker, who said there's rational, rational addiction model. This is sort of extreme homo economicas who knows his or her own preferences and then reveals them through their marketplace choices. Addictive things and these little affect modulators throw a wrench into the whole economic theory of economicus rationally. It goes to a different level of being human, which is not a weaker level.
In part two of our interview with cultural anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll, author of Addiction by Design, we learn what gamblers are really after a lot of the time — it’s not money. And it’s the same thing we’re looking for when we mindlessly open up Facebook or Twitter. How can we design products so that we’re not taking advantage of these universal urges and vulnerabilities but using them to help us? Tristan, Aza and Natasha explore ways we could shift our thinking about making and using technology.