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Comment by jbms | Hacker News Reader

There is permanent damage if you rewire your kids brain chemistry to get addicted to the near-miss of getting something good. Logical explanations don't undo that.

I understand from a Louis Theroux documentary on gambling addicts that it is the feeling of the near miss that is actually addictive and not the feeling of the win. Gambling addicts are used to winning and so they don't get a buzz from that.

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Yes! Came here to say this. The f*ckery is indeed that. The near-miss makes it addictive. Logic and learning has nothing to do with it. I could not say it any better than how the game developers themselves say it: "“being the only good person is likely going to make you lose money”(Fortnite dev). https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/342130/Former_Fortnite_U...

I am not disagreeing, but, on the other hand, they will be exposed to this, at at least one order of magnitude higher intensity than I ever was as a kid, or even in my 20s.

I don't have a perfect solution, just pointing out the bind we're in.

I'm actually not terribly prone to the "youth are just all messed up today compared to my generation" idea scheme, but while homo sapiens hasn't changed, the environment has changed radically and the amount of cognitive firepower being brought to bear on us to get our money and manipulate us has skyrocketed in the past decade or two. I've got a 11 and 8 year old and am still struggling through how to deal with it.

+1 I was thinking about this too, dopamine creating strong neurons which you cannot get rid off easily.

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