I don’t believe rock & roll, music videos or violent video games rot children’s brains (those were moral panics). But the current generation of social media and certain kinds of video game designs are absolutely designed to be addictive. I don’t think culture war stuff is comparable to people engineering software for dopamine hits.
At least a music video or song is three minutes long. That’s an eternity to a Tik Tok brain and they will become uncomfortable having to concentrate that long.
Rule #382: You can translate 'kids these days' commentary from one generation to the next by simply substituting $newthing for $oldthing, and inserting a new value of $newthing. For instance:
1990s: Kids these days wouldn't have the attention span to {read a book}. All they can do is {watch music videos}.
2020s: Kids these days wouldn't have the attention span to {watch a music video}. All they can do is {browse TikTok}.
On the extreme end, you got the Civ series. It's been around for 30 years now. There is literally a joke website called Civ Anonymous. "One More Turn"
FPS games like CS really feed that dopamine hit when you get a kill, especially a head shot. You think the game designers aren't thinking about how to make that kill as satisfying as possible?
Even the games of the 90s were engineered to be addictive. Tetris when you clear the blocks. Mario when you get a power up. Even Solitaire when you win the game and the cards go flying.
