Different activities provide differing reward for differing efforts.
Water cooler chat, which requires active social engagement and is time bounded, is not as addicting as an endless stream of content accessed with a twitch of the finger. You might not use Facebook in that way, and I similarly don't find it that engaging, but I've certainly experienced it with reddit and HN.
And I don't think this is some intractable personality flaw, I think people get used to the comfort of frequent dopamine hits, and find it very difficult to drag themselves away from these sources as a result. Cold turkey can and does make a difference.
You should maybe read up about what addiction really is. What it is caused by. I think you misunderstand what is meant by "dopamine hit".
Yes dopamine is part of a loop or cycle that is a survival strategy. In a healthy individual in a healthy situation.
When this loop works properly then yes, it is called being happy (there's more things to being happy but a properly functioning dopamine loop is part of it).
Think of a dopamine release and its causes like a particular message in a protocol that runs inside our body.
Our bodies aren't perfect or tested against every possible situation.
Sometimes the combination of the dopamine protocol and the environment causes a weird feedback loop that is no longer beneficial to this survival strategy.
In most of those cases, this results in a state called an addiction. (and in that case we call the dopamine release a "dopamine hit", to emphasize the role of addiction)
Fighting this bad feedback loop can be a constant struggle. A daily, constant struggle that lasts a lifetime once you get stuck in it. If you compare that to "being happy", then I can only assume you've never experienced it (and I hope you never will, but you can still learn compassion).
Sometimes these faults are exploited on purpose, very often for the commercial purposes of the amoral corporations.
It's also the case that certain people are more susceptible to these exploits. For instance ADHD is well-known to be co-morbid with susceptibility to addiction.
Dopamine triggers satisfaction, not happiness. Otherwise we just fond the magic recipe for the whole world to be extremely happy! Instead it turns out that just makes everyone feel miserable.
> Otherwise we just fond the magic recipe for the whole world to be extremely happy! Instead it turns out that just makes everyone feel miserable.
What is it you're saying makes everyone feel miserable? AIUI the artificial substitute for dopamine is cocaine, which only makes people miserable when they run out (and more generally as tolerance kicks in)? Social media seems to make some people miserable, but despite how much people love to throw around "dopamine" in Internet arguments ("skinner box" is another good one) there's no scientifically demonstrated connection AFAIK.
Water cooler chat, which requires active social engagement and is time bounded, is not as addicting as an endless stream of content accessed with a twitch of the finger. You might not use Facebook in that way, and I similarly don't find it that engaging, but I've certainly experienced it with reddit and HN.
And I don't think this is some intractable personality flaw, I think people get used to the comfort of frequent dopamine hits, and find it very difficult to drag themselves away from these sources as a result. Cold turkey can and does make a difference.