Radio was the original moral panic. Then television. Then video games. Now we're on to social media. But this time feels different. Why? Because even the adults are noticing they can't control themselves. Their attention in other things is suffering. Our brains are being trained to seek short dopamine hits from reels instead of entering a real flow state that solves fulfilling challenges.

Social media reel scrolling creates a "potato chip" kind of flow state... it seems to satisfy you in the moment, but even after you've consumed more than you thought you would, you're still unsatisfied. The introduction of a new medium is not novel, but the magnitude of the effect is.

TV is vastly different, it’s tailored to demographics of watchers and at the time the understanding of psychology when it comes to marketing and retention was substantially less developed than it is now.