The mid-century rat experiment that teaches social platforms how to create addiction
Why we waste our time and creativity
Songpairing
*** Michael McDonald singing “minute by minute by minute by minute” sounds like these relentless rats pressing their levers ***
In the 1960s, a Harvard researcher named B.F. Skinner performed a seminal experiment on conditioning behavior.
He put some rats in a box with a lever. When a rat happened to press the lever, out came a delicious pellet of food. The rats soon learned to press the lever every time they desired another pellet.
What clever little rats!
But that was not the end of the experiment because Skinner soon pioneered the concept of intermittent reinforcement— otherwise known as the most powerful and manipulative method of behavior conditioning.
Skinner changed the settings on the lever. One group of rats was given a dead lever. No matter how many times they pressed, no pellet.
They soon gave up, for good.
The second group of rats was given a lever that produced a pellet at widely unpredictable intervals—sometimes it required 8 presses, sometimes 79, and sometimes just 1.
These rats soon began pressing the lever incessantly, dogged and determined.
They exhausted themselves, neglected themselves, and appeared zombified and hopeless—at least according to one observer.
If you’ve ever been in an abusive relationship, as I have, you may be candidly familiar with this dynamic of degradation, and its draining drama. (alliteration is awesome!)
You can also take a trip to the local gas station slot machine for a more literal example.
Or…glance down at the handy but oft sinister little rectangle machine in your hand.
This week I am asking you to zoom out and observe where you may be pressing for pellets in your life.
Here, I’ll go first—
Fucking social media, man.
Before I was a burgeoning pop star, I had a private little instagram page (no facebook!) where I would infrequently post little pictures of my kids and family at places, or re-share a a dog meme, or an infuriating news-bit ( before I wised up to fear-mongering).
Now here we are in the age of “GOTTA BLOW UP ON TIK TOK,” and I find myself pulling and pushing that lever, cranking out “content,” being intermittently reinforced with likes and comments and shares, (or not) and feeling compelled to do it all over again.
Maybe if I try it this way, maybe if I post at 11am instead of 2pm, maybe if I add a long caption this time, let me just see if anyone responded; refresh, repost, redouble.
Blather, rinse, repeat.
It might look different on you—
Maybe you’re in an online dating phase and the apps have you in a chokehold.
Maybe your work has you checking email and texts every three minutes.
Maybe you’re compulsively scrolling for dopamine hits.
My guess, though, is that if you are metaphorically pressing for pellets in your life, you are doing it on your smartphone.
As with most patterns, it can be hard to see from the inside. I knew social media was draining me, I just couldn’t articulate why until I serendipitously stumbled upon this study last week.
My only goal at the moment is to just be aware of the behavior, not to change it.
I’m not swearing off smartphones or social media ( I still gotta blow up), but now when I have the impulse to pick up my phone, I also have the metacognition to see it for what it is: a rude little lever.
That is all I am asking you to do, too.
We can all still press for pellets, but just not at the expense or neglect of ourselves.
Cool?
Cool.
If you made it all the way down here, you might want to think about pressing that button down there!
This Week’s Fascinating Cultural Miscellany:
I love this concept by Dan Blank of clarity cards to really prioritize goals:
Seth Werkheiser shares an incredible anecdote to remind us that we don’t have to play by social media’s rules to make an online impact:
