Around the Paulov’s dog
In the context of human interaction with social networks, a phenomenon comparable to Pavlov’s classic conditioning experiment is observed. In that experiment, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov demonstrated how dogs, when repeatedly exposed to the sound of a bell before receiving food, began to salivate upon hearing it, anticipating the arrival of the food. Similarly, users of platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook experience automatic responses to certain digital stimuli, such as notifications, “likes” or updates. These carefully designed stimuli trigger a predictable and almost reflexive reaction in the human brain, similar to the salivary response of dogs in Pavlov’s experiment.
This phenomenon is not a product of chance, but the result of meticulous development in advanced studies on persuasion and conditioning techniques. The engineers and designers behind these platforms have managed to identify and manipulate the brain circuits responsible for the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with feelings of pleasure and reward. Each interaction with social apps acts as a positive reinforcement, which encourages repetition of the behavior and generates a cycle of dependency.
Just as Pavlov conditioned his dogs to respond automatically to a previously neutral stimulus, social networks have established a system in which users are conditioned to repeatedly interact with their content. This system, based on behavioral psychology, is designed to keep users engaged by exploiting the human brain’s tendency to seek instant gratification. In this way, digital platforms have managed to capture and hold users’ attention, creating a perpetual cycle of interaction and feedback, comparable to the classical conditioning mechanism described by Pavlov.
Damn doomscrolling
The scroll down syndrome, which has been mischievously dubbed doomscrolling, is familiar to anyone with an active social media life: this is the name given to the well of hours into which it is easy to inadvertently descend when exploring the worlds of TikTok, Instagram, Facebook or similar networks. An infinite journey, because the Internet has no limit, propelled by a finger dragging the screen downwards. The interesting thing is that users assume this investment of time navigating between stories, reels and shorts, as their own decision, but that is not really true. Because behind every social network there is a mechanism, meticulously studied and fine-tuned over the years, which is the real culprit in turning the experience into a huge, and very effective, hook for our attention.
At Stanford University, one of the most striking subjects is Persuasive technology lab. It studies the psychology of persuasion and its intricacies, through a syllabus that analyzes elements such as the work of Edward Bernays, marketing techniques as a weapon of seduction, the way in which casinos construct the environment to guide the visitor to the slot machines, or the effectiveness of clicker training, a training technique for dogs that is based on accompanying achievements and progress with a click capable of stimulating the brain. Taking these premises into account, it is not too surprising to understand why some of the students attending the course included specialists in ethical design from Google, or the future founders of Facebook.
The greatest achievement of social networks has been their unusual ability to change the rules. At the time, media such as radio or television caused earthquakes in the usual norms of consumption. But digital worlds have managed to go much further by infiltrating and reshaping something much more serious: collective social psychology. Television was a true revolution, but it did not reinvent social reality. Instead, smartphones and apps like Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok or Instagram have completely altered our behavior by making our own friends, family and acquaintances the core of the experience. The public accesses networks to learn more about the members of their circle, to expand it by discovering like-minded people, and to feel validated in the eyes of friends or strangers. The effectiveness of these applications is resounding, because even when their users are not looking at the screen, many of the things they are thinking about will be largely dictated by what they have seen a few minutes earlier as they slide down the doomscrolling slide.
Persuasion and FOMO
And much of the blame for all this lies with those engineers who had researched the fields of the psychology of persuasion. Because the pillar on which all social networks are built is their effectiveness in triggering the segregation of dopamine in the brains of their users. That neurotransmitter that is associated with feelings of pleasure in the brain, the direct culprit of stoking feelings such as motivation and good mood. Something that those who work behind the scenes of any social application take into account when weaving the operation of the same. To do this, they use tricks that involve studying the agenda and the usual schedule of each individual in order to throw on him a batch of likes from his closest environment at the right time, when the person is more sensitive and more attentive to interactions. At the same time, the internal algorithms, those secret formulas that everyone is trying to decipher, work on elaborating metrics and pruning the most anodyne material. Collecting data with which to tailor the content that will appear in the recommendations tabs, with the aim of feeding the FOMO ( Fear Of Missing Out) and giving the impression that closing the app will mean not being aware of what is trending.
FOMO(Fear of Missing Out) is directly related to operant conditioning, a fundamental principle in behavioral psychology. In operant conditioning, behaviors are reinforced by the application of rewards or the removal of negative stimuli, which increases the likelihood that those behaviors will be repeated. In the case of FOMO, this fear of missing out on something important in social networks acts as a negative reinforcer. The anxiety or discomfort caused by the possibility of being left out of something relevant leads users to constantly check their social platforms. In doing so, they seek to alleviate that uncomfortable feeling, which reinforces frequent connection behavior.
Each time users access their social networks and find new updates, interactions or information that they consider valuable, they experience a temporary relief of FOMO, which acts as a positive reinforcement in the operant conditioning cycle. This positive reinforcement not only reduces anxiety, but also motivates the user to repeat the behavior of checking their devices for new rewards. Thus, FOMO not only triggers constant checking behavior, but also becomes a key mechanism that maintains and reinforces continuous interaction with digital platforms. This cycle perpetuates the constant use of social networks, creating a pattern of conditioned behavior that is effectively exploited by the design of these applications. In this way, FOMO and operant conditioning work in tandem to foster dependence on social networks, keeping users trapped in an endless cycle of interaction and reward.
The power of TikTok
Community building is another essential goal, probably the most important one, for the ideologues of any social network. Algorithms focus on spurring hashtags to provoke chain reactions, reaffirming the feeling in the dwellers of these parallel worlds that they are part of the most significant and influential trends. Something that, in reality, is completely true. TikTok has been the environment that has best known how to play with the implications of a dedicated commune. Because its internal policy has decided to promote, with great success, the concept of challenge, the famous viral challenges, to the point of turning it into a fun obsession, with a global reach, capable of going beyond the virtual world to become a news item on the news. It is a trend that has not only ceased to be Martian, but has been embraced even by the most famous personalities.
Another of TikTok’s most brilliant moves was to bet on novelty as the main element of the proposal. The original birth of the platform translated into a huge success all of a sudden, attracting a new type of influencer, more natural and informal, whose style was far from those personalities that dominated the worlds of YouTube or Instagram. The platform’s managers observed that the freshness of the content had been the main culprit behind the brand’s initial momentum, took note of this and decided to make inventiveness and originality the distinctive character of their product. A strategy, executed in a veiled way, that hid under the presumed randomness a meticulous work: Tik tok’s algorithm was adjusted to give priority to the videos with the highest number of likes and interactions, instead of taking into account the number of followers accumulated by their creators, as was the case in other virtual environments. This made it possible for users with a small number of followers, but with new and striking content, to become viral phenomena. As a result, the feeling that in this ecosystem, original and creative material was the norm was strengthened. A perspective that was directly related to the brain: that emotion that a person experiences when opening the app, knowing in advance that he or she will find something that will be surprising, is a beautiful new shot of dopamine in the brain, the physiological basis of operant conditioning.
The other great success of TikTok was a sound trick directly related to clicker training, something tremendously simple and effective: the sound at the end of each shared video. A distinctive trace that was conceived, together with other melodic elements, by the company MassiveMusic after a very exhaustive analysis of the spirit of the product. The result was a fixed sound logo composed of an 808 sub-bass hit, a vibrant impact that evoked pop music as an essential component of the platform, followed by an E major seventh chord that was intentionally unresolved, like an unfinished melody. And the latter is a very important detail, because that last note was left hanging in the air as an incomplete harmony with a specific purpose, that of becoming a question mark. TikTok’s soniquete is much more than a sonorous identity, it is a discreet signal that when presented unfinished evokes in the listener’s head a very specific question: “What’s next? A doubt that irremediably drags him to dive into the platform. Or one of the most perfect hooks ever devised to trap the audience.
What does the future hold?
In recent years, various legal initiatives have been implemented worldwide to mitigate the harmful effects of doomscrolling and excessive use of social networks. These measures are designed to protect the mental health and well-being of users, especially young people, by regulating the design of platforms and introducing control and transparency mechanisms. Some countries are exploring laws that would force platforms to modify their algorithms to reduce addiction, such as limiting the automatic playback of videos or controlling continuous notifications. In the European Union, theDigital Services Act seeks to impose greater responsibilities on platforms, promoting a safer and healthier online environment.
In addition, measures are being considered to force social media companies to be more transparent about how their algorithms work, particularly in the way they prioritize and present content to users. This transparency would allow regulators and the public to better understand how platforms encourage doomscrolling, making it easier to create more effective strategies to counter its negative effects. Also, some governments are evaluating the implementation of limits on app usage time, especially for minors, through automatic restrictions or parental control tools, in an effort to ensure healthier and more ethical use of digital platforms.
