> get them to do something that goes against their self-interest and well-being.
This is where I stop agreeing with you. It is an established scientific fact that smoking is harmful to anyone doing it. Why are you confident that social media is also harmful or goes against people's self-interest? People choose to use it; they connect with people they know on it. Is there some study I'm missing that shows social media causes clinical depression or some other adverse affect?
editing: rereading what you wrote and it sounds like your issue is not that FB is harmful but that it is purposely addictive/getting people to do something they wouldn't otherwise. Hmm...when people talk about addiction like alcoholism, gambling, drug use etc. it's always connected to adverse affects -- like overdose, job-loss, divorce etc. The addiction interferes with a person's ability carry out their normal responsibilities. People are not becoming homeless because of Facebook addition. You could make a similar argument about caffeine which causes chemical addiction to change people's behavior but is widely accepted. BTW how do you feel about World of Warcraft addiction?
AFAIK, no coffee producer competes on the basis of having the coffee beans with the most efficient caffeine delivery rates or gets a premium for being more addicting than strain A or B. Starbucks' stock price is not affected by how addicted to caffeine they get their users to become. If the consumer base decided to switch 100% to decaf coffee, they would still have a profitable business just the same.
WoW addiction? Bad for sure, but Blizzard does not make more money in direct correlation with the time that the people spend playing, do they? Does a 3h/day gamer makes only half the revenue of a 6h/day gamer? I guess not.
You keep using "addicting" in a misleading sense. Facebook does not optimize for addiction, it optimizes for engagement. The addiction that makes nicotine and other substances so harmful refers to the physiological & psychological dependence these substances create. Repeat engagement is not the same as actual addiction and it's misleading to conflate them.
Coffee companies do the same, their goal is that you repeatedly come back to consume more of their coffee, decaf or not. The more frequently and voraciously customers consume their coffee, the more money they make from coffee sales. You think they don't also market test coffee variations for popularity?
Almost every company in the world optimizes for more; more consumption, more usage, more sales. The idea that Facebook is somehow in a league of its own for how it optimizes is clearly not true.
Whatever you need to tell yourself if it helps you sleep at night...
I am using the term in the same sense you are. People feel dependent on their social networks, their apps and even declare to feel things akin to withdrawal syndrome when they are away from their devices or haven't checked their networks for updates.
And again, the fact that "other companies do similar things" is not an excuse, less so due to the fact that Facebook has way more reach and uses technology that can amplify their effectiveness infinitely. I don't have Starbucks baristas knocking on my door offering me coffee, I do have Facebook listening to conversations inside my house because of my wife's phone.
This is where I stop agreeing with you. It is an established scientific fact that smoking is harmful to anyone doing it. Why are you confident that social media is also harmful or goes against people's self-interest? People choose to use it; they connect with people they know on it. Is there some study I'm missing that shows social media causes clinical depression or some other adverse affect?
editing: rereading what you wrote and it sounds like your issue is not that FB is harmful but that it is purposely addictive/getting people to do something they wouldn't otherwise. Hmm...when people talk about addiction like alcoholism, gambling, drug use etc. it's always connected to adverse affects -- like overdose, job-loss, divorce etc. The addiction interferes with a person's ability carry out their normal responsibilities. People are not becoming homeless because of Facebook addition. You could make a similar argument about caffeine which causes chemical addiction to change people's behavior but is widely accepted. BTW how do you feel about World of Warcraft addiction?